Starlink internet speeds

[Sigyn]

For anyone wondering, these are the speeds you get using Starlink on Harmony of the Seas. Pretty crappy. 

[BirdTravels]

It will only get worse as the system begins to get used. All of that data coming from a growing number of users has to hit a physical internet interface on land - which will soon be the bottle neck. 

[soremekun]

I wonder if throttling is a factor.

[FireEMT978]

Best of luck to anybody trying to use wi-fi calling since the change to Starlink. 

I was on Harmony, Oasis, and Beyond since the installation, and was running on the "Premium" for all of them. Can't do Wi-fi calling. All calls immediately go to garbage, and when the other person can hear anything, they say that you sound like a robot. I use a Samsung S22 Ultra. MANY people complaining about this with Starlink on the ships. I never had a problem prior to the change. Now, wi-fi calling doesn't work. 

[smokeybandit]

Starlink on Jewel was fantastic a couple weeks ago.

[A&L_Ont]

The speed test below was on Oasis earlier in March. I’ve heard it depends on location in comparison to the satellites but IMO there has to be some throttling too. Some nights I could not even connect to do a speed test.
 

Same on Harmony in the start of the year. 
 

 

Edited April 2, 2023 by A&L_Ont

[neverbeenhere]

42 minutes ago, soremekun said:

I wonder if throttling is a factor.

While I can understand your passion, I really don’t think this would help the situation. 😁

[twangster]

New technology from a new service.  Eventually it'll work. 

[baileymouse]

They oversell it, and people get knocked off. I have almost no service on Anthem in January, which caused me to miss a few meetings on the sea days.

[Biker19]

2 hours ago, soremekun said:

I wonder if throttling is a factor.

Not sure why anyone would assume it wasn’t. 

[brevardcruiser]

Hit or miss on odyssey.  It would always disconnect and reconnect 

[DeputyDawg46]

Seams like every ship I've been on in the last six months, and I do one or two a month, the WiFi has had problems.  On one cruise I've had an access point right outside my room and the service was poor.  IT had no clue what to do.  Just got off the Explorer and it would drop from one floor to the next or walking from the WJ to the spa.  WiFi calling has been spotty at best.  I find the IT guys are poorly equipped to understand and provide solutions.

[soremekun]

They probably haven't upgraded to wifi 5 and wifi 6 capable access points for all of the ships.  They could probably benefit from additional access points (in the staterooms).

Routers, switches, and APs may be due for replacement (EOL?). Yes, Cisco is expensive.

How often do they reboot the network components (not sure what their logs or other monitors are showing re: issues)?

Are they current with firmware upgrades (don't need to be at the most recent but fairly current)?

You can throw greater bandwidth at poor infrastructure / IT practices all you want but that's only part of the equation.

Edited April 3, 2023 by soremekun

[Toddcan]

On Anthem March 12-19, I was thrilled when we first boarded and I got 100Mbps (yup!) in the windjammer. I knew that would not be sustained. I got screen shots through the cruise showing speeds between 3Mbps and 30. 

 

But - and here is the important part - the connectivity sucked.  Always dropping connection. Tried the tricks of the trade, and nada.    It's really horrible. I would have been happy with 3-5 Mbps if it was sustained!!  

[twangster]

6 hours ago, soremekun said:

They probably haven't upgraded to wifi 5 and wifi 6 capable access points for all of the ships.  They could probably benefit from additional access points (in the staterooms).

Routers, switches, and APs may be due for replacement (EOL?). Yes, Cisco is expensive.

How often do they reboot the network components (not sure what their logs or other monitors are showing re: issues)?

Are they current with firmware upgrades (don't need to be at the most recent but fairly current)?

You can throw greater bandwidth at poor infrastructure / IT practices all you want but that's only part of the equation.

 

There is little benefit to Wifi6 or Wifi6E on a ship.  Wifi5 has been in use for years and the later versions can achieve gigabit rates.  However in all cases to achieve higher throughput requires consuming more channels or RF spectrum which is a problem when you need more access points to provide better coverage in challenging environments like all metal ships.  

 

When you desire to install more access points for better coverage you need to ensure nearby access points are not using overlapping frequencies or else they will interfere with each other.  Each wifi channel is 20MHz wide.  To achieve greater throughput requires combining multiple channels such as 40 MHz channels, 80 MHz channels or in the case of very high throughput in the 5Ghz band, 160 MHz channels.

 

When you need to add more access points in large scale deployments you need to use lower throughput rates to ensure the access points don't interfere with each other.   This applies even in the latest WiFi standards and it will apply in future WiFi standards. 

 

Consider Oasis that uses 20 MHz channels.

 

 

This is representative of pretty healthy WiFi in a large scale deployment.  While in a consumer's home a consumer can set their WiFi for greater throughput by combining channels that only works because there are not many access points in a typical home.  If someone was to place ten access points in a home setting to achieve better coverage they could actually experience less throughput if the access points were overlapping and therefore interfering with each other.   

 

In the example of the Oasis screenshot above for the 2.4 GHz band they are using unique channels 1,6 and 11 as they should be.  There is no overlap as there shouldn't be.  

 

Let's look at the 5 GHz band on Oasis:

 

 

Again we see non-overlapping channels (a good thing) and they are ensuring access points minimize interference by limiting channel width to 20MHz.  

 

The advantage to limiting channel width to 20 MHz is less interference from neighboring access points.  In this case my device, a Samsung S22 Ultra has negotiated a 173/173 Mbps PHY rate with the WiFi5 platform on channel 165 with a channel width of 20 MHz.  802.11ac confirms this is WiFi5.  In this example -53 dBm is a pretty decent signal level in the real world.  I was in my cabin with the door closed at this time.

 

 

For a 20 MHz channel in the 5GHZ band 173 Mbps is pretty typical in the real world when you are not standing immediately below an access point.  

 

My actual throughput observed in this speed test was 8.9 Mbps down and 4.6 Mbps up due to Royal's policy of rate limiting on a per user basis.

 

Here's the thing - WiFi6 or WiFi6E would not have changed anything unless they used wider channels such as 80Mhz or 160 MHz BUT if they did that many of the ten access points pictured above would begin interfering with each other causing less than ideal throughput due to the interference.  The newest WiFi standards don't help large scale WiFi deployments in this regard.

 

The latest wifi standards use higher frequencies and consume more channels to provide high throughput.  That's great in a consumer home but have little benefit in a large scale wifi deployments.  The higher frequencies penetrate metal less effectively so a ship full of metal won't see many advantages of newer wifi standards in this regard. 

 

WiFi6E uses the 6GHz band while WiFi5 and WiFi6 use the 5GHz band but being a higher frequency comes with the cost of penetrating materials such as metal, cement and even glass less effectively.  In a typical home with relatively thin drywall the newer WiFi standards can produce better throughput. 

 

Let's take a look at Jewel.  I was onboard as they were installing the Starlink antennas so internet service was still Speedcast. 

 

Jewel uses 40MHz channels with WiFi5 access points.  

 

 

In this example my device negotiated a 243/270 Mbps PHY rate on a 40 MHz wide channel using channel 44.  802.11ac confirms this is WiFi5.  

 

Because the ship wasn't yet on Starlink on this date my throughput was, as expected, pretty slow.   While we were in Cozumel they did a generator test that involved cutting power to the ship while they switched over to the backup generator.  The temporary loss of power resulted in the WiFi controller where they implement per user throttling from doing it's throttling job.  In the download direction I was able to achieve 92 Mbps.  That's pretty impressive for Speedcast and likely all the satellite bandwidth the ship had access to at this moment in time.

 

 

It's relevant here because the 92 Mbps didn't come close to the 243 Mbps PHY WiFi rate my device was connected to the ship WiFi using.  

 

Here's the thing about Jewel.  Her Fortinet "FortiAP" access points are from the 2015 era.  WiFi5 existed in 2015 and were capable of rates as high as 450Mbps in perfect conditions.  In the real world on a ship or on land it was rare to achieve 450Mbps and my results above, while in my cabin with the door closed are good real world examples of what to expect from WiFi5 using 40 MHz channels.  

 

Even with 2023 satellite internet providers, 2015 era WiFi5 is not the exclusive issue that is responsible for the Voom experiences being reported.  In a challenging large scale deployment with a lot of metal there would be very little gained by upgrading the access points to the latest standards. Voom would still suck.

 

If they spent millions of dollars upgrading all ship WiFi infrastructure there would be very little gained with the user experience because the all metal nature of ships requires more access points and more access points only play nice with each other when you keep them on their own unique channels and that means restricting channel width which neuters the throughput advantages of newer WiFi technology.

 

On Wonder of the Seas they have placed access points in each cabin to overcome the metal signal loss experienced with access points in hallways.  The access points are WiFi5 802.11ac access points.  They are Aruba model 303H access points and you are welcome to google the specs on them.  These access points top out at 867 Mbps per user but you only get there by using larger channel widths which they don't because they can't without the risk of causing interference.

 

In the case of Wonder there would have been no benefit to using WiFi6 or WiFi6E access points.  The Aruba 303H are still a current model even today years after Wonder was built and/or when they placed the orders for all those 303H access points on her which was probably in 2020.

 

Incidentally the app I use is called WiFiMan and it's free.  It's available for most Android phones in the Google Play store.  The app doesn't require rooting and simply monitors the environment without any unlawful or unethical access required.  

[soremekun]

27 minutes ago, twangster said:

 

There is little benefit to Wifi6 or Wifi6E on a ship.  Wifi5 has been in use for years and the later versions can achieve gigabit rates.  However in all cases to achieve higher throughput requires consuming more channels or RF spectrum which is a problem when you need more access points to provide better coverage in challenging environments like all metal ships.  

 

When you desire to install more access points for better coverage you need to ensure nearby access points are not using overlapping frequencies or else they will interfere with each other.  Each wifi channel is 20MHz wide.  To achieve greater throughput requires combining multiple channels such as 40 MHz channels, 80 MHz channels or in the case of very high throughput in the 5Ghz band, 160 MHz channels.

 

When you need to add more access points in large scale deployments you need to use lower throughput rates to ensure the access points don't interfere with each other.   This applies even in the latest WiFi standards and it will apply in future WiFi standards. 

 

Consider Oasis that uses 20 MHz channels.

 

 

This is representative of pretty healthy WiFi in a large scale deployment.  While in a consumer's home a consumer can set their WiFi for greater throughput by combining channels that only works because there are not many access points in a typical home.  If someone was to place ten access points in a home setting to achieve better coverage they could actually experience less throughput if the access points were overlapping and therefore interfering with each other.   

 

In the example of the Oasis screenshot above for the 2.4 GHz band they are using unique channels 1,6 and 11 as they should be.  There is no overlap as there shouldn't be.  

 

Let's look at the 5 GHz band on Oasis:

 

 

Again we see non-overlapping channels (a good thing) and they are ensuring access points minimize interference by limiting channel width to 20MHz.  

 

The advantage to limiting channel width to 20 MHz is less interference from neighboring access points.  In this case my device, a Samsung S22 Ultra has negotiated a 173/173 Mbps PHY rate with the WiFi5 platform on channel 165 with a channel width of 20 MHz.  802.11ac confirms this is WiFi5.  In this example -53 dBm is a pretty decent signal level in the real world.  I was in my cabin with the door closed at this time.

 

 

For a 20 MHz channel in the 5GHZ band 173 Mbps is pretty typical in the real world when you are not standing immediately below an access point.  

 

My actual throughput observed in this speed test was 8.9 Mbps down and 4.6 Mbps up due to Royal's policy of rate limiting on a per user basis.

 

Here's the thing - WiFi6 or WiFi6E would not have changed anything unless they used wider channels such as 80Mhz or 160 MHz BUT if they did that many of the ten access points pictured above would begin interfering with each other causing less than ideal throughput due to the interference.  The newest WiFi standards don't help large scale WiFi deployments in this regard.

 

The latest wifi standards use higher frequencies and consume more channels to provide high throughput.  That's great in a consumer home but have little benefit in a large scale wifi deployments.  The higher frequencies penetrate metal less effectively so a ship full of metal won't see many advantages of newer wifi standards in this regard. 

 

WiFi6E uses the 6GHz band while WiFi5 and WiFi6 use the 5GHz band but being a higher frequency comes with the cost of penetrating materials such as metal, cement and even glass less effectively.  In a typical home with relatively thin drywall the newer WiFi standards can produce better throughput. 

 

Let's take a look at Jewel.  I was onboard as they were installing the Starlink antennas so internet service was still Speedcast. 

 

Jewel uses 40MHz channels with WiFi5 access points.  

 

 

In this example my device negotiated a 243/270 Mbps PHY rate on a 40 MHz wide channel using channel 44.  802.11ac confirms this is WiFi5.  

 

Because the ship wasn't yet on Starlink on this date my throughput was, as expected, pretty slow.   While we were in Cozumel they did a generator test that involved cutting power to the ship while they switched over to the backup generator.  The temporary loss of power resulted in the WiFi controller where they implement per user throttling from doing it's throttling job.  In the download direction I was able to achieve 92 Mbps.  That's pretty impressive for Speedcast and likely all the satellite bandwidth the ship had access to at this moment in time.

 

 

It's relevant here because the 92 Mbps didn't come close to the 243 Mbps PHY WiFi rate my device was connected to the ship WiFi using.  

 

Here's the thing about Jewel.  Her Fortinet "FortiAP" access points are from the 2015 era.  WiFi5 existed in 2015 and were capable of rates as high as 450Mbps in perfect conditions.  In the real world on a ship or on land it was rare to achieve 450Mbps and my results above, while in my cabin with the door closed are good real world examples of what to expect from WiFi5 using 40 MHz channels.  

 

Even with 2023 satellite internet providers, 2015 era WiFi5 is not the exclusive issue that is responsible for the Voom experiences being reported.  In a challenging large scale deployment with a lot of metal there would be very little gained by upgrading the access points to the latest standards. Voom would still suck.

 

If they spent millions of dollars upgrading all ship WiFi infrastructure there would be very little gained with the user experience because the all metal nature of ships requires more access points and more access points only play nice with each other when you keep them on their own unique channels and that means restricting channel width which neuters the throughput advantages of newer WiFi technology.

 

On Wonder of the Seas they have placed access points in each cabin to overcome the metal signal loss experienced with access points in hallways.  The access points are WiFi5 802.11ac access points.  They are Aruba model 303H access points and you are welcome to google the specs on them.  These access points top out at 867 Mbps per user but you only get there by using larger channel widths which they don't because they can't without the risk of causing interference.

 

In the case of Wonder there would have been no benefit to using WiFi6 or WiFi6E access points.  The Aruba 303H are still a current model even today years after Wonder was built and/or when they placed the orders for all those 303H access points on her which was probably in 2020.

 

Incidentally the app I use is called WiFiMan and it's free.  It's available for most Android phones in the Google Play store.  The app doesn't require rooting and simply monitors the environment without any unlawful or unethical access required.  

Excellent information.

Utilizing the greater spectrum available from Wifi 6E in a more AP-dense environment along with its better implementation of MU-MIMO should yield better results than today's experience.  I concede metal is a significant negative influence and is not a significant consideration in my work environment.  

 

There may be other factors on the backend I have no insight into such as band steering, fast roaming, etc that can also affect user experience with older vs newer devices.

Edited April 3, 2023 by soremekun

[twangster]

2 hours ago, soremekun said:

Excellent information.

Utilizing the greater spectrum available from Wifi 6E in a more AP-dense environment along with its better implementation of MU-MIMO should yield better results than today's experience.  I concede metal is a significant negative influence and is not a significant consideration in my work environment.  

 

There may be other factors on the backend I have no insight into such as band steering, fast roaming, etc that can also affect user experience with older vs newer devices.

 

One advantage of newer technology is the ability to handle greater numbers of devices per AP.  This really comes into play in settings where you can expect large numbers of wireless clients such theaters, pool decks and promenades.  However this doesn't tend to create slow sessions.  

 

For the most part roaming issues manifest themselves in the clients themselves.  The decision to roam is made by the client, i.e. a device like a smartphone.  Access points have little ammunition to influence a device and tell it time to move on.  The decision which AP to associate with rests with the client.  

 

The single largest user issue tends to be new features that are being written into the OS.  Apple Private Relay, randomized MAC addresses, Google One (VPN - which exists primarily so Google knows everything you do) and other "protection" services.  In some cases these are being enabled by default without the user knowing something has changed and they can wreak havoc on hotel and ship internet platforms.  

 

When one person has a great experience and someone else is "being disconnected every 5 minutes" it's probably their device, or at least 9.5 out of 10 times it is.  

 

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by twangster

[twangster]

Starlink website Feb. 22, 2023 suggested 350 Mbps @ $5k/mo. for the maritime service:

 

 

Starlink website a few weeks later on March, 12 2023,  220 Mbps @ $1k/mo. for maritime service:

 

 

Sure it's 38% slower but hey, the price went down $4,000 per month. 

 

Think of the money Royal is saving.  

 

[topnole]

26 minutes ago, twangster said:

Starlink website Feb. 22, 2023 suggested 350 Mbps @ $5k/mo. for the maritime service:

 

 

Starlink website a few weeks later on March, 12 2023,  220 Mbps @ $1k/mo. for maritime service:

 

 

Sure it's 38% slower but hey, the price went down $4,000 per month. 

 

Think of the money Royal is saving.  

 

Is this the rate for cruise ships or yachts? I never would’ve imagined Royal only pay 1k per month per ship.  The crew alone on the big ships probably pay more than that combined per day to use internet.  Either way, that’s about 6-7 passengers per cruise on a week long trip and they break even for the month if it is 1k per month.  Talk about a good profit margin on that particular service.  

[twangster]

1 hour ago, topnole said:

Is this the rate for cruise ships or yachts? I never would’ve imagined Royal only pay 1k per month per ship.  The crew alone on the big ships probably pay more than that combined per day to use internet.  Either way, that’s about 6-7 passengers per cruise on a week long trip and they break even for the month if it is 1k per month.  Talk about a good profit margin on that particular service.  

 

Royal places multiple systems on each and aggregates them.  At least 8 on small ship like Radiance class and around 16 or so on larger ships like Oasis class.  That way they are capable of much higher rates and if one particular antenna is blocked by the stacks or some other piece of superstructure, or if one system fails they have resiliency in addition to the aggregate bandwidth of many systems. 

 

Oasis class has some on top of Coastal Kitchen and some on top of the suite sun deck.

 

 

Forward suite sun deck roof area, 2 on starboard, 2 on port side.

 

 

Voyager class has around 10-12.  Six on top of the VCL and then at least 4 on the forward roof area.

 

 

 

Forward roof area, 2 on starboard, 2 on port side.

 

 

Jewel has four on VCL roof

 

 

Plus four on roof above the Sky Bar.  

 

 

What we don't know is what RCG negotiated for the bulk purchase of so many systems (All RCI plus Celebrity and SilverSea ships) or if they negotiated a bulk contract for the bandwidth.

 

However if the private yacht service dropped from $5k to $1k you can bet Royal realized a price drop as well for their bulk contract.

 

[topnole]

6 minutes ago, twangster said:

 

Royal places multiple systems on each and aggregates them.  At least 8 on small ship like Radiance class and around 16 or so on larger ships like Oasis class.  That way they are capable of much higher rates and if one particular antenna is blocked by the stacks or some other piece of superstructure, or if one system fails they have resiliency in addition to the aggregate bandwidth of many systems. 

 

Oasis class has some on top of Coastal Kitchen and some on top of the suite sun deck.

 

 

Forward suite sun deck roof area, 2 on starboard, 2 on port side.

 

 

Voyager class has around 10-12.  Six on top of the VCL and then at least 4 on the forward roof area.

 

 

 

Forward roof area, 2 on starboard, 2 on port side.

 

 

Jewel has four on VCL roof

 

 

Plus four on roof above the Sky Bar.  

 

 

What we don't know is what RCG negotiated for the bulk purchase of so many systems (All RCI plus Celebrity and SilverSea ships) or if they negotiated a bulk contract for the bandwidth.

 

However if the private yacht service dropped from $5k to $1k you can bet Royal realized a price drop as well for their bulk contract.

 

Wow this is some thorough information.  Thanks for the explanation.  Very interesting stuff albeit some of it is way over my head.  I’m not a tech idiot, but I only use it for a living.  I don’t design or engineer it.  Huge difference and clearly you know your stuff much better than the average bear.  I have a friend who does all of this stuff for another cruise line.  Suffice it to say he is a pretty smart guy.  
 

On our symphony TA last month the internet was very slow at times in our aft hump cabin during the day.   It would take a solid 10 minutes for my wife to text me a picture sometimes.  I finally said to her, why aren’t you just air dropping pics to me.  And sometimes even just regular texts were slow around the ship when we were both definitely connected to wifi.  On the other hand, on a port day, I made a wifi call from my phone and it went through just as it should.  Assume that is because many folks were off the ship.  

As with anything, technology doesn’t always work perfectly and it will probably remain normal to have varying experiences cruise to cruise or even on the same cruise.  Sadly, that makes it difficult to rely on high speed internet if you really need it for reasons like work while cruising.  

[resetjet]

Too many users for the installed equipment.  Latency sucks.  

[twangster]

45 minutes ago, resetjet said:

Too many users for the installed equipment.  Latency sucks.  

 

Too much latency to the default gateway or to a destination on the internet?

[firefly333]

On 4/2/2023 at 4:59 PM, smokeybandit said:

Starlink on Jewel was fantastic a couple weeks ago.

I'm on radiance and late last night didnt work at all ... again. Dont know if its maintenance or just spotty but couldnt get this site or any others to come up. I saw this thread and just posting a warning it's off and on for radiance. 

[resetjet]

11 hours ago, twangster said:

 

Too much latency to the default gateway or to a destination on the internet?

Latency on the lan  Probably due to insufficient upload.