Internet issues on Transatlantics. Is this going to be fixed?

[Gracie115]

Have been reading horror stories on various Princess ships about little or no internet service unless the ship is in port.  Our previous sailings on the Regal in 2018 & 2019 we did not experience anything like this.  What has happened that the service is so slow or non existent and will it be fixed, replaced, upgraded some time soon?  We have a 17 night trip on the Sky booked in late 2024 and really don't want to be out of touch for most of those days.

Edited April 2, 2023 by Gracie115

[david63]

7 minutes ago, Gracie115 said:

replaced

Not sure when it will be rolled out but all Carnival brands are reported to be moving over to Starlink in the next year or so.

[kywildcatfanone]

Just off the Regal today, and they were installing starlink equipment. No idea about rollout time frame,  bit the equipment was being installed.  No idea if it will be better service.

[Envelope21]

It is not just the transatlantics. We were on the Enchanted Princess on a 6-day from Barcelona and the internet was probably the worst I've ever experienced on a cruise.

[chengkp75]

Even with a change to Starlink service, the vast majority of the oceans are not supported yet by the Starlink satellite constellation.  It currently is primarily in coastal waters.

[beg3yrs]

28 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Even with a change to Starlink service, the vast majority of the oceans are not supported yet by the Starlink satellite constellation.  It currently is primarily in coastal waters.

Hmm ... I beg to differ Chief. Starlink's satellites are not geosynchronous with spot beams, they are low-earth-orbit (LEO) birds with various orbital inclinations. They do cover the oceans quite well. It's actually the reverse for coastal / territorial waters as some governments have not yet given permission for Starlink ground / maritime terminals to operate.

[afurman]

Starlink isn't as great as everything thinks right now.  It has been pretty bad on Royal Caribbean ships right now.  I think we need the gen2 satellites to fix the issues that exist right now, also don't trust what marketing says until real people test it out. 

 

Someone talking on a thread about Symphony of the Seas transatlantic a few weeks ago, said internet was horrible and that ship is Starlink already.  Also, someone said Sky Princess had working internet this year on its transatlantic.  I can say last year Sky Princess Internet didn't work well but it might also be the route they take since the route was different this year than last year, but I can say Princess changed from O3B when leaving Port Everglades last year to high orbit satellites for the crossing not sure what they did this year.

[MissP22]

I hope we'll see some difference when Starlink is finally installed. 

In some locations it can't be much worse. 

[Rick&Jeannie]

IMO...Princess pulled back on the amount/type of bandwidth that was contracted for during the pandemic.  Not much point in continuing their campaign of "Best WiFi at sea" when there were no ships sailing!  Since the restart...again IMO, I think they balked at ramping back up the service to what they had intended to do in the 2020 time frame given their crushing cash flow scenario.  Looking at this *strictly* from their business viewpoint...I (grudgingly) have to say that it made sense.  It would *appear* that they are being forced (peer cruise line pressure) to go with Starlink.  I certainly hope that this will at least provide *some* usable bandwidth on trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific cruises.  Time will tell.

[Yehootu]

I've been able to stream You Tube everyday so far on the Crown. 28day Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti cruise. Facetime with Grandkids has been OK, not perfect, but Ok.

[TN-Mountains]

3 hours ago, afurman said:

Starlink isn't as great as everything thinks right now.  It has been pretty bad on Royal Caribbean ships right now.  I think we need the gen2 satellites to fix the issues that exist right now, also don't trust what marketing says until real people test it out. 

 

Someone talking on a thread about Symphony of the Seas transatlantic a few weeks ago, said internet was horrible and that ship is Starlink already.  Also, someone said Sky Princess had working internet this year on its transatlantic.  I can say last year Sky Princess Internet didn't work well but it might also be the route they take since the route was different this year than last year, but I can say Princess changed from O3B when leaving Port Everglades last year to high orbit satellites for the crossing not sure what they did this year.

I'm curious.  How do you know they did this?  Did they make an announcement?  

[Bgwest]

3 hours ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

IMO...Princess pulled back on the amount/type of bandwidth that was contracted for during the pandemic.  Not much point in continuing their campaign of "Best WiFi at sea" when there were no ships sailing!  Since the restart...again IMO, I think they balked at ramping back up the service to what they had intended to do in the 2020 time frame given their crushing cash flow scenario.  Looking at this *strictly* from their business viewpoint...I (grudgingly) have to say that it made sense.  It would *appear* that they are being forced (peer cruise line pressure) to go with Starlink.  I certainly hope that this will at least provide *some* usable bandwidth on trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific cruises.  Time will tell.

Any fact based insight or just as you said, your opinion (SWAG)?

[mnocket]

4 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

Even with a change to Starlink service, the vast majority of the oceans are not supported yet by the Starlink satellite constellation.  It currently is primarily in coastal waters.

The issue was that the Starlink satellites need to communicate with ground stations.  That meant that the older Starlink satellites needed to be within range of a coastal station (i.e. 400 miles)  The newer Starlink satellites have inter-satellite laser communication - i.e. mid-ocean satellites bounce their signal satellite to satellite until a ground station is reached.  With many newer satellites already in orbit, Starlink claims maritime service is now global, providing connectivity to the vast majority of the Earth's oceans and seas.  There have been multiple reports on Cruise Critic that seem to support this. 

 

With Starlink continuing to launch satellites at a rapid pace, this service will continue to improve.  However, it's important keep in mind that even with Starlink the cruise ships contract for a set bandwidth which they then meter to individual users.  This has a great effect on the actual speeds users experience.  Just because cruise ships can provide significantly better internet service with Starlink doesn't mean they will.  They can also implement Starlink to simply save cost while only providing marginally improved service to their customers.  It's really up to the cruise lines.

[mnocket]

4 hours ago, afurman said:

Starlink isn't as great as everything thinks right now.  It has been pretty bad on Royal Caribbean ships right now.  I think we need the gen2 satellites to fix the issues that exist right now, also don't trust what marketing says until real people test it out. 

 

Someone talking on a thread about Symphony of the Seas transatlantic a few weeks ago, said internet was horrible and that ship is Starlink already.  Also, someone said Sky Princess had working internet this year on its transatlantic.  I can say last year Sky Princess Internet didn't work well but it might also be the route they take since the route was different this year than last year, but I can say Princess changed from O3B when leaving Port Everglades last year to high orbit satellites for the crossing not sure what they did this year.

Never underestimate a cruise line's ability to take a great new technology and implement in a way that saves them money rather than greatly improving customer service.  Starlink internet is fast.  If cruise lines contract for inadequate Starlink bandwidth and then throttle users to slow speeds - that's their choice.  Some cruise lines may want to use Starlink to save money rather than leveraging it to provide vastly improved internet service to their customers.  Cruise lines boasting they have Starlink, only means they could provide improved internet service - it doesn't mean they actually do.  This is where marketing meets reality.  It used to be that cruise lines could get away with saying "hey, it's the best that we can do in the middle of the ocean".  The truth now is that it's the best they choose to provide.

Edited April 2, 2023 by mnocket

[VibeGuy]

GEO satellites get parked where the paying customers are and there’s just not a lot of paying customers in the middle of the Atlantic so signal strength is marginal and bandwidth is limited.   So the fallback position when there’s no MEO asset (the default on Princess) is worsened by geography.  It’s a combination of astrophysics and business. 
 

The MEO satellite system Princess uses is O3B and they have wildly oversold their capacity.  To try and maximize capacity into the busy shipping lanes and government users in the Med, they concentrate bandwidth into those areas at the expense of users in less populated areas like the middle of the ocean, by beam steering.  This especially affects maritime users who are trying to lock on a moving target from a moving platform, and the target is minimally throwing RF their way.  

 

O3B knows they have a problem and is launching another constellation of better MEO satellites.   They were first delayed by COVID and then delayed by economic sanctions against their very Russian launch partner.   They’re now partnered with SpaceX for launch capacity and are only like three years behind schedule at this point, relying on a direct competitor for rides to space.  They have got two of the next eleven birds up and have launches scheduled every few months for the rest of the year and in to 2024.  Which is a long way of saying that Princess can finally live up to the promise of the best WiFi at sea by 2019 standards sometime in 2024. 
 

Starlink is not a panacea but could dramatically improve things.  Adding it to the existing fleet and integrating it so that data in and out takes the highest performing route based on real-time conditions isn’t exactly the same as plugging it in to home WiFi.  I’m surprised to hear it being installed at Princess before Aida and P&O and Costa  are finished because they are, by far, even more impacted by SES’ abject failure. 

[Coral]

On my TA in November - Europe was far worse than the TA. Internet started working once we switched satellites and were on the TA part of the trip.

[afurman]

6 hours ago, TN-Mountains said:

I'm curious.  How do you know they did this?  Did they make an announcement?  

I was on the cruise before and the transatlantic in 2022.  I have speedtests from the Eastern Caribbean where the carrier was O3B and then speedtests from the transatlantic where the carrier was different.  Also, the ship had no internet for about 1 hour while docked in Port Everglades the morning of leaving for the transatlantic and when it came back it was horrible even when in Florida.

[GonzoWCS]

Can't wait for it to work!

 

Cheers

[Buckeye10640]

Anyone wonder if some of the issues has to do with the number of users? With Princess 'encouraging' customers towards internet inclusive packges, I suspect at any given time there are many more individuals on the ship connected versus 3 or 4 years ago.  Pre-covid we had never had internet on a cruise but once we tried it,  now we wont cruise without it. 

[Coral]

3 minutes ago, Buckeye10640 said:

Anyone wonder if some of the issues has to do with the number of users? With Princess 'encouraging' customers towards internet inclusive packges, I suspect at any given time there are many more individuals on the ship connected versus 3 or 4 years ago.  Pre-covid we had never had internet on a cruise but once we tried it,  now we wont cruise without it. 

Yes - definitely. I wake up early and internet is always better when others are asleep.

[MissP22]

16 hours ago, Coral said:

Yes - definitely. I wake up early and internet is always better when others are asleep.

I suffer from insomnia & at 3 AM it's actually usable on the ships.... as are port days.  

[the penguins]

On 4/2/2023 at 11:25 AM, Gracie115 said:

Have been reading horror stories on various Princess ships about little or no internet service unless the ship is in port.  Our previous sailings on the Regal in 2018 & 2019 we did not experience anything like this.  What has happened that the service is so slow or non existent and will it be fixed, replaced, upgraded some time soon?  We have a 17 night trip on the Sky booked in late 2024 and really don't want to be out of touch for most of those days.

Just completed a Transatlantic on Sky Princess. Apart from the 2 days before reaching Madeira and the day docked there the internet worked fine. The IT people explained that we would suffer the loss for the 3 days because only one satellite covered the area. They correctly forcast that when we left Madeira internet would be ok and it was.

To summarise 15 day cruise - 3 days mid Atlantic with no service and the world didn't come to an end. Relax and enjoy the cruise.

[Gracie115]

1 hour ago, the penguins said:

Just completed a Transatlantic on Sky Princess. Apart from the 2 days before reaching Madeira and the day docked there the internet worked fine. The IT people explained that we would suffer the loss for the 3 days because only one satellite covered the area. They correctly forcast that when we left Madeira internet would be ok and it was.

To summarise 15 day cruise - 3 days mid Atlantic with no service and the world didn't come to an end. Relax and enjoy the cruise.

Wonderful news!!!

[cr8tiv1]

On the Diamond (off now):  INTERnet usage

 

1.  Internet Manager told us that connections would be better on port days.

2.  Ocean People told me that I could not access other bookings on Medallion Class app because they didn't have enough bandwidth to support all of my bookings/access.  I had to go to the terminal to get my next boarding arrival time.  "Lost" two of my 4 bookings on the app.

3.  Speed was slightly better on port days when everyone was off the ship.  Sister tried to download/watch Netflix (I know/don't ask....) and it kept buffering and/or dead stop while the ship was moving (everyone onboard).

4.  I didn't have issues downloading emails or reading sites like CNN.  Some YouTube or CNN videos took a long time to load. 

 

I can imagine how hard it must have been for those who were working remotely.

 

Never had trouble on Hawaii voyages or CA coastals.