Starlink internet speeds

[chrisb74]

Spectrum of the seas has Starlink. Latency and speeds are not great. This is 12.30pm on embarkation day. Unless the ship is doing a lot of data for boarding the load should be light. 

[twangster]

5 hours ago, chrisb74 said:

Spectrum of the seas has Starlink. Latency and speeds are not great. This is 12.30pm on embarkation day. Unless the ship is doing a lot of data for boarding the load should be light. 

 

Those appear to be the capped speeds that some other ships use.  Oasis has nearly the exact same speed caps.  

 

For some reason Royal has decided to throttle users on some ships but not others.  

[twangster]

9 hours ago, resetjet said:

Latency on the lan  Probably due to insufficient upload.  

 

What WiFi rates has your device negotiated?  How are you determining your LAN latency?

[resetjet]

7 hours ago, twangster said:

 

What WiFi rates has your device negotiated?  How are you determining your LAN latency?

Guess and experience.  I designed and installed my resorts wifi network. I have 600 users,  they have   10,000 users on a metal ship.  If i were designing it i would have one for every floor.    I do not know but i am guessing also they have multiple wan connections as i do to split it up.  I have not personally worked with starlink so i dont know how that works,  but it seems is would be easy to have 5 different steams.

[twangster]

2 minutes ago, resetjet said:

Guess and experience.  I designed and installed my resorts wifi network. I have 600 users,  they have   10,000 users on a metal ship.  If i were designing it i would have one for every floor.    I do not know but i am guessing also they have multiple wan connections as i do to split it up.  I have not personally worked with starlink so i dont know how that works,  but it seems is would be easy to have 5 different steams.

 

I have 12,000 users in a campus environment all on a single VLAN.  That is the current best practice for optimal roaming.  It's called the Single VLAN design and it spans multiple floors and buildings in a campus environment.   

 

https://www.arubanetworks.com/resource/single-vlan-design-for-wireless-lan/

 

If you do it by floor you can expereince issues when clients associate to a different floor as they move around and you will create roaming issues.  For example talking on a wifi call while walking around, going up stairs, into an open foyer where access points on multiple floors could be in play and so on.  My users can stream video or play on a game conole as they walk between buildings and never drop a session.  

 

In an environment like this you don't want one per floor. 

[Sigyn]

Still on Harmony: 4 pm on a sea day right now and the download speed is better, upload is worse

 

 

[DarthGrady]

Starlink has been hit or miss in my experience so far. OK speeds on Indy back in November (10ish down, 2ish up) but on Harmony in January it was worse, less than half that on average. 

[Biker19]

11 hours ago, DarthGrady said:

but on Harmony in January it was worse, less than half that on average. 

On some ships the Starlink install kept the previous “normal” cap of about 4Mbps down. 

[jean87510]

On 4/3/2023 at 5:12 AM, 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.  

Terrific info.  And absolutely correct.

[soremekun]

16 hours ago, twangster said:

 

I have 12,000 users in a campus environment all on a single VLAN.  That is the current best practice for optimal roaming.  It's called the Single VLAN design and it spans multiple floors and buildings in a campus environment.   

 

https://www.arubanetworks.com/resource/single-vlan-design-for-wireless-lan/

 

If you do it by floor you can expereince issues when clients associate to a different floor as they move around and you will create roaming issues.  For example talking on a wifi call while walking around, going up stairs, into an open foyer where access points on multiple floors could be in play and so on.  My users can stream video or play on a game conole as they walk between buildings and never drop a session.  

 

In an environment like this you don't want one per floor. 

Wow!  Single VLAN.  Well, there are some settings to prevent a broadcast storm.  I use 4 VLANS, partly for conceptual / visual purposes for our campuses.  Also helps with our IPSEC VPN across campuses.  When I log into the controller, I can easily distinguish which IPs are associated with a specific group.  However, there are many ways to accomplish the same purpose.  Side note, we used to have Aruba APs in use with their wireless controllers.

 

Edit:. The shared doc is a good read.  Thanks for sharing.

Edited April 7, 2023 by soremekun

[resetjet]

18 hours ago, twangster said:

 

I have 12,000 users in a campus environment all on a single VLAN.  That is the current best practice for optimal roaming.  It's called the Single VLAN design and it spans multiple floors and buildings in a campus environment.   

 

https://www.arubanetworks.com/resource/single-vlan-design-for-wireless-lan/

 

If you do it by floor you can expereince issues when clients associate to a different floor as they move around and you will create roaming issues.  For example talking on a wifi call while walking around, going up stairs, into an open foyer where access points on multiple floors could be in play and so on.  My users can stream video or play on a game conole as they walk between buildings and never drop a session.  

 

In an environment like this you don't want one per floor. 

Thats a cool setup.  My line of thinking was because of the massive steel in between floors,  the signals are pretty much isolated anyway,  so why not break it up.  But i see your point. 

[nascartony20fan1]

On 4/7/2023 at 4:02 AM, Biker19 said:

On some ships the Starlink install kept the previous “normal” cap of about 4Mbps down. 

Which ships? 

[Biker19]

1 hour ago, nascartony20fan1 said:

Which ships? 

The reporting of speed caps is sparse and can change over time. Assume your ship is limited to 4Mbps and be pleasantly surprised if you get more. For most uses you won’t perceive much diff regardless of cap level. The bigger issue is reliability, not speed. 

[nascartony20fan1]

5 hours ago, Biker19 said:

The reporting of speed caps is sparse and can change over time. Assume your ship is limited to 4Mbps and be pleasantly surprised if you get more. For most uses you won’t perceive much diff regardless of cap level. The bigger issue is reliability, not speed. 

Thanks. We are trying to decide if it’s possible to work remotely during a Transatlantic cruise next year. Oasis and Odyssey of the seas are available. Trying to decide which ship could have more reliable internet. Any idea? Thanks

[twangster]

19 minutes ago, nascartony20fan1 said:

Thanks. We are trying to decide if it’s possible to work remotely during a Transatlantic cruise next year. Oasis and Odyssey of the seas are available. Trying to decide which ship could have more reliable internet. Any idea? Thanks

 

Purely from an internet perspective the experience will likely be the same.   

[nascartony20fan1]

5 minutes ago, twangster said:

 

Purely from an internet perspective the experience will likely be the same.   

Thanks. Do you think the internet will be functional enough barring any bad weather, etc., to actually work onboard during a transatlantic? Webex meeting, occasional phone calls, etc Thank you. 

[twangster]

6 minutes ago, nascartony20fan1 said:

Thanks. Do you think the internet will be functional enough barring any bad weather, etc., to actually work onboard during a transatlantic? Webex meeting, occasional phone calls, etc Thank you. 

 

With satellite internet you should never assume 100% availability.

 

It will be unavailable at times, or perform poorly at times.  Naturally this will occur when you need it most,

 

[twangster]

Boarding day Navigator this past Friday 

 

 

Day 3, about 3 hours away from Cabo

 

[jwlane]

On Allure last week in the Gulf of Mexico.  WiFi calling, streaming worked fine.

[steveru621]

You'll probably have more issues with the hopefully automatic transition between WiFi routers.

 

What I've found we are sharing the internet with 2-5,000 other passengers.  They all have discovered streaming is possible.

[twangster]

18 minutes ago, steveru621 said:

You'll probably have more issues with the hopefully automatic transition between WiFi routers.

 

What I've found we are sharing the internet with 2-5,000 other passengers.  They all have discovered streaming is possible.

 

No issues roaming on Navigator.  

 

 

Thete may be 5,000 on board but that doesn't mean 5,000 are all on Voom in the same area of the ship.  

 

Navigator has 10 Starlink systems aggregated to around 3.5Gb.   For the 4,000 guests on here that's ample.  

[mac_tlc]

Just took this. We are about two hours after leaving Geiranger on Jewel of the Seas:

 

 This one was about 5 hours after we left Amsterdam, as we got to the North Atlantic Ocean:

 

 

 

This one along side the terminal in Amsterdam:

 

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by mac_tlc

[JK805]

Just getting a decent connection that allows me to do what I want to do is good enough for me most times, especially when I remind myself I’m miles off land! Even with “slow” speeds I’ve been able to surf the internet, use wifi calling, and even join the weekly family video chats while in the middle of the ocean. 

That being said, on Vision last month I was pleasantly surprised to see some great speeds, but could very well have been a perfect combo of where the ship was, where I was on the ship, and what AP I was connected to and how much interference wasn’t there between everything. 

 

[twangster]

Navigator summary over several days, variety of times and locations.

 

 

Ironically just as I tried to post this we had an internet outage for a few minutes.

 

 

 

[twangster]

I talked to the Voom specialist on Navigator.  She claims the per user speed caps went away as soon as they switched to Starlink.   Her statement was "They are set 999 up and 999 down, the maximum setting".