Onboard WiFi - faster with VPN?

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

On the Reflection now and we're experiencing much poorer "streaming" internet than on the same ship in February.

 

In February, though, there were only ~900 guests compared to ~2,777. Internet speeds most of the cruise were in the 4 Mbps range. For this cruise, I was measuring about 0.7 Mbps (700 Kbps). Later on, it seems to have dwindled down to lows of 0.05 Mbps (50 Kbps), which are like old dial up speeds. At that level, many sites will glitch out - especially yesterday when it cut out completely many times.

 

This morning I tried (w/laptop and Pixel) going through Hotspot Shield (VPN). After several attempts I was able to connect, and measured speeds from 1-2 Mbps. It still cut in/out from time to time, but sites were definitely loading faster.

 

It's interesting that some speed test sites are apparently blocked by Celebrity, when not using the VPN, or have altered functionality.

 

Not being fully aware of the specifics regarding VPNs, but knowing that it encrypts the connection and can have it go through a US (or other) ip address for purposes of accessing location blocked websites, is a byproduct of the encryption process speeding things up (by bypassing Celebrity filtering and site blocking)?

 

Without VPN:

 

 

 

 

With VPN:

 

 

 

 

 

[NutsAboutGolf]

Can you try the speed test using the speed test measuring site/map and do them back to back, with and without VPN?  In your screenshot, they're possibly different sites and are nearly 5 hours apart.

 

Time of day has always been an issue based on my direct experience.  Internet is the worst during sail-aways both embarkation and when departing a port and the half hour before and after meal service starts.  Usually 10pm-6am is the fastest you're going to get.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

1 minute ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

Can you try the speed test using the speed test measuring site/map and do them back to back, with and without VPN?  In your screenshot, they're possibly different sites and are nearly 5 hours apart.

 

Time of day has always been an issue based on my direct experience.  Internet is the worst during sail-aways both embarkation and when departing a port and the half hour before and after meal service starts.  Usually 10pm-6am is the fastest you're going to get.

Due to unknown reasons, those two sites will only work in either the VPN environment, or the standard. Both of them have issues working in an alternate format. Also, I've tested over multiple hours back and forth and have noted a distinct difference.

 

So, apples to apples is not possible with those two speed test sites. And I can't use my app for speed test.net with the non-VPN site.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

OK - I just tried another speed test site. Pretty clear difference. I  ran this twice, within just a couple of minutes of each other. Twice with VPN on and twice with VPN off. Each time the results were within 10% of each others, and quite different between the two! Strange Things Are Afoot At The Circle K, Ted !!

 

WITHOUT  VPN:

 

 

WITH VPN:

 

 

Tom

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

This article helps to explain what I'm experiencing. It would appear that the VPN helps to bypass bandwidth throttling, onboard at least!

 

Tom

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

The previous tests were with my Pixel 6 Pro, the following (just conducted) were with my Dell XPS laptop:

 

Without VPN:

 

 

With VPN:

 

 

It's pretty cut and dry to me (and the latency on the VPN here was pretty impressive) !!

 

Tom

 

 

[viperfoth]

I thought Celebrity blocked VPNs? Or was that only with the "Basic" internet package?

 

And I assume you are on premium package?

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

2 hours ago, viperfoth said:

I thought Celebrity blocked VPNs? Or was that only with the "Basic" internet package?

 

And I assume you are on premium package?

Yes, but I doubt they're differentiating between the two.

 

Tom

[intr3pid]

The real test would be whether they are able to throttle your VPN under the "surf" plan.