Internet Speed

[Clay Clayton]

There is always lots of discussion on these boards regarding internet speeds. Thought I would share a speed test I just performed aboard Viking Sky about 12 hours out from Sydney at 3:30 in the afternoon.  
 

The frustration of trying to read CC, access a website, etc is understandable given these slow speeds. Often after waiting for a thread to load, then waiting for a screen after hitting quote or reply, it looses connection. It seems to be a little faster in the middle of the night (no I don’t stay up to check but more than once I’ve tried to upload a video to Instagram and it just says uploading with nothing appear to be happening so I leave it open when I go to bed.  It’s finished the next morning)

#firstworldproblem

[CDNPolar]

@Clay Clayton I hear your frustration.

 

We have more recently been purchasing Airalo e-SIM's and the data only kind.  They are so cheap compared to what our Canadian cell packages charge us for roaming.

 

I have had this same challenge onboard with spead, UNTIL, I decided to turn off the WiFi and go with the data only on the e-SIM.  Then the speed is great.  BUT, you have to be in range of shore for the e-SIM to be active.  If you are sailing and away from shore, it does not help, and having both the WiFi and the e-SIM active will default to the WiFi depending on your settings.  

 

Now I only have WiFi enabled on the ship if we are sailing.  (Ocean as for River, you are often close enough to the shore)

[Clay Clayton]

2 minutes ago, CDNPolar said:

@Clay Clayton I hear your frustration.

 

We have more recently been purchasing Airalo e-SIM's and the data only kind.  They are so cheap compared to what our Canadian cell packages charge us for roaming.

 

I have had this same challenge onboard with spead, UNTIL, I decided to turn off the WiFi and go with the data only on the e-SIM.  Then the speed is great.  BUT, you have to be in range of shore for the e-SIM to be active.  If you are sailing and away from shore, it does not help, and having both the WiFi and the e-SIM active will default to the WiFi depending on your settings.  

 

Now I only have WiFi enabled on the ship if we are sailing.  (Ocean as for River, you are often close enough to the shore)

Yes, once onshore or closeby, we turn on our T-Mobile data and the frustrations fade away!

[CDNPolar]

2 minutes ago, Clay Clayton said:

Yes, once onshore or closeby, we turn on our T-Mobile data and the frustrations fade away!

 

Clay - have Viking implemented the pay for internet and the included internet?  I remember reading about this somewhere...

[Clay Clayton]

11 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

 

Clay - have Viking implemented the pay for internet and the included internet?  I remember reading about this somewhere...

Not on Sky

[FoggyEthan]

15 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

Yes, once onshore or closeby, we turn on our T-Mobile data and the frustrations fade away!

Depending upon your carrier and plan, you may be able to tell your phone to create a "hotspot". So first turn off wi-fi on your phone, assuming you are near enough to land to have cell phone connection, then turn on the hotspot. Your phone will then create its own local wi-fi network and relay it automatically via cell service.

 

So with this you can have your laptop connect to your phone's hotspots and get the higher speeds.

 

Of course, be certain that your carrier won't charge you a fortune. My plan has it included.

 

I looked into Airalo and those e-sims you can pre-purchase. The catch is that they won't tie into your existing phone number, so you can't receive calls and texts. Text messages that are undelivered can be deleted by your carrier after just a few days, so you may permanently lose texts that the sender assumes have been delivered. This isn't a deal-breaker for everyone, but for me I'd rather spend $100 and get to keep my home phone number.

-- Ethan

 

[DrKoob]

I write a daily blog when we are on a cruise. I did our 21 day Sky Med trip last fall. Never had a single problem uploading tons of photos and being able to post them...but I am a very early riser and I found if I started writing at 4:00 am and finished by 6:30 or so when I went to work out, there was never a problem with speed. I did speed tests like yours from time to time and found I could get about 15 both up and down. I know a lot of the vlogging guys who upload video to YouTube do the same because I see them sometimes when I am up to write, uploading their videos. 

 

Edited February 9 by DrKoob

[FoggyEthan]

2 hours ago, FoggyEthan said:

I looked into Airalo and those e-sims you can pre-purchase. The catch is that they won't tie into your existing phone number, so you can't receive calls and texts. Text messages that are

 

Sorry -- you can receive calls and texts, but not at your normal USA number.

[CDNPolar]

6 hours ago, FoggyEthan said:

Sorry -- you can receive calls and texts, but not at your normal USA number.

 

Depending on your phone model you can receive calls and texts on your home number, but your phone has to have a dual sim capability.

 

Airalo does talk about this on their site, but I personally have not used this yet.  I am just starting to look into this for my next trip.

[OneSixtyToOne]

4 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

 

Depending on your phone model you can receive calls and texts on your home number, but your phone has to have a dual sim capability.

 

Airalo does talk about this on their site, but I personally have not used this yet.  I am just starting to look into this for my next trip.

We’ve used Airalo on our iPhones for the last two years without any issues. Configuration is key. We disable the main eSIM of our carrier when we arrive in the foreign country. Otherwise SMS texts will attempt to use your phone plan. We found this out the hard way when our first text popped up with a $10 charge by Verizon.

 

Edited February 9 by OneSixtyToOne

[FoggyEthan]

2 hours ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

We’ve used Airalo on our iPhones for the last two years without any issues. Configuration is key. We disable the main eSIM of our carrier when we arrive in the foreign country. Otherwise SMS texts will attempt to use your phone plan. We found this out the hard way when our first text popped up with a $10 charge by Verizon.

 

Was there some way to continue to receive texts sent to your home phone number after you disabled the main eSIM? Or did you just accept that you would lose the texts?

 

For me with Verizon, for $100 I can get 30 days of international use of my phone. I realize that Airalo is much cheaper than that, but if Airalo would mean that texts and calls to my home phone would be lost, then I'd rather pay $100.

[OneSixtyToOne]

2 hours ago, FoggyEthan said:

Was there some way to continue to receive texts sent to your home phone number after you disabled the main eSIM? Or did you just accept that you would lose the texts?

 

For me with Verizon, for $100 I can get 30 days of international use of my phone. I realize that Airalo is much cheaper than that, but if Airalo would mean that texts and calls to my home phone would be lost, then I'd rather pay $100.

You configure the e-sim with your phone number.

 

The confusing part is Apple texts don't use SMS, they use their own network. That's why you'll see other people on an iPhone in blue and non iPhone in green.

 

 

Edited February 9 by OneSixtyToOne

[FoggyEthan]

4 minutes ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

You configure the e-sim with your phone number

You ported your USA home phone number to the Airalo e-sim, and were then able to receive calls and texts that went to your home phone number? From the Airalo website:

 

For most Airalo eSIMs, you will not be able to make phone calls or send SMS text messages, as our eSIM packs provide data only.

 

And if you port your home phone number to another SIM, your home cell phone provider will close your account immediately.

[OneSixtyToOne]

30 minutes ago, FoggyEthan said:

You ported your USA home phone number to the Airalo e-sim, and were then able to receive calls and texts that went to your home phone number? From the Airalo website:

 

For most Airalo eSIMs, you will not be able to make phone calls or send SMS text messages, as our eSIM packs provide data only.

 

And if you port your home phone number to another SIM, your home cell phone provider will close your account immediately.

I used a data only eSIM and texting worked. But then again I only text to other people using iPhones.

[FoggyEthan]

8 minutes ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

I used a data only eSIM and texting worked. But then again I only text to other people using iPhones.

Ah, that's the magic, then. iPhone-to-iPhone messaging is data, not text message.

 

We're in an era where text messages are used to send 4 or 6 digit codes and without those codes it can be impossible to log in to websites or get basic business done. It makes me nervous to be gone from home and maybe not be able to promptly fix a problem with a financial account!

[bookbabe]

I know you can have multiple Airalo e-sims in your Airalo account but you cannot have more than one active at a time.  We did that earlier this week because Jamaica isn’t on the supported countries list for the Airalo global, so we had to buy a small single country one and activate that for a couple days.

 

I’m not sure if you can have multiple e-sims from different providers active on your phone at one time, we haven’t tried.  That might be a phone-specific thing.  I vaguely remember seeing something in an article I was skimming about some way to prioritize what sim was used for what calls, but as we only planned to use one at a time I didn’t pay any attention to what the procedure was.

 

@FoggyEthan you may want to either turn off two-factor authentication while you travel, or switch it to an emailed code instead of a texted one.  We had to do that when we were in the middle of moving and were trying to switch over various accounts, and it was getting totally frustrating having to continually swap sims back and forth between our old and new cell numbers to get all the stupid codes texted to us.  Luckily we still had both phones active, I don’t know how we would have done it if we couldn’t still access our old phone number.

[CurlerRob]

11 hours ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

We’ve used Airalo on our iPhones for the last two years without any issues. Configuration is key. We disable the main eSIM of our carrier when we arrive in the foreign country. Otherwise SMS texts will attempt to use your phone plan. We found this out the hard way when our first text popped up with a $10 charge by Verizon.

 

 

Curious - are you purchasing Airalo eSims that include voice/SMS? All the ones that I've seen that include voice are listed under the "Global" offerings. They are a bit more expensive but that's for the voice/SMS.

 

The data-only offerings do not support SMS (or voice of course). I presume your reference to configuration is that you are "pointing" your home cell number at the Airalo eSim data for use with Apple iMsg?

 

If it's otherwise, I'll be very pleased! 🍺🥌

[CDNPolar]

13 hours ago, FoggyEthan said:

Ah, that's the magic, then. iPhone-to-iPhone messaging is data, not text message.

 

We're in an era where text messages are used to send 4 or 6 digit codes and without those codes it can be impossible to log in to websites or get basic business done. It makes me nervous to be gone from home and maybe not be able to promptly fix a problem with a financial account!

 

I am going to have to consult my other half on this, but I am certain with our last trip this past December that I could not iMessage him and we were using WhatsApp.  I had the Airalo data only eSIM.  We are both iPhone users.  He had his phone on Canadian Roaming paying daily because we had to remain in full touch with one phone, and I had the eSIM.

 

This is where I find the eSIM's confusing and there are so many settings that you have to flip back and forth, and they change with the iPhone and iOS version that you are on too.

Edited February 10 by CDNPolar

[Mike07]

2 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

 

I am going to have to consult my other half on this, but I am certain with our last trip this past December that I could not iMessage him and we were using WhatsApp.  I had the Airalo data only eSIM.  We are both iPhone users.  He had his phone on Canadian Roaming paying daily because we had to remain in full touch with one phone, and I had the eSIM.

 

 

 

Hmm... both iMessage and Whatsapp should have worked since they use data and not SMS. Delta, Southwest, and I'm sure a few others offer every traveler free messaging (no multimedia) on those two apps for travelers, since the data overhead is so small and communication is important in 2024.

[CDNPolar]

21 hours ago, Mike07 said:

 

 

Hmm... both iMessage and Whatsapp should have worked since they use data and not SMS. Delta, Southwest, and I'm sure a few others offer every traveler free messaging (no multimedia) on those two apps for travelers, since the data overhead is so small and communication is important in 2024.

 

Wonder if this is a cell phone carrier thing?  I had this conversation with my other half and my memory was correct, I was on eSIM data only and he was on our home carriers Roam Like Home package.  We could NOT iMessage each other - only WhatsApp.  

 

We have often travelled with both of us on the Roam Like Home package and we can absolutely iMessage each other.  With the data only eSIM's nope.

 

I am going to say that when I am on an aircraft with free texting, I also cannot iMessage.  I can WhatsApp, but not iMessage.

[benjaminnicholas]

FYI:  Expedition ships are using Starlink, so it's much speedier than Ocean or River ships.

[OneSixtyToOne]

9 hours ago, benjaminnicholas said:

FYI:  Expedition ships are using Starlink, so it's much speedier than Ocean or River ships.

I believe all the ocean ships have been converted to Starlink. The speed is highly dependent on where on the globe you are. There is less coverage at extreme latitudes as well as the vast South Pacific. We had fantastic speeds in the Mediterranean. Expedition ships have fewer passengers. Our speeds at the tip of South America were not as fast as the Mediterranean, but the bandwidth was greater because of fewer passengers.

 

From the Viking Sky

Edited February 13 by OneSixtyToOne

[FetaCheese]

Was on Star Dec/Jan 2024, Hawaiian Islands Sojourn.  Had no trouble with V included Internet.  Did a live from, including photos.  Worked very well even in middle of Pacific Ocean.  Could not find out if ship had Starlink.

[rmalbers]

I used  an Airalo, data-only, e-SIM on my Samsung (Android) s21u last trip and it worked great for maps, etc., data stuff.  As mentioned in this thread, apple imessage is not a 'standard text' message and thus you can't 'apple text' to a non-apple user on a data only plan.  With a Samsung multi SIM android phone you select in the settings what SIM or e-SIM to use for data or text or voice calls, so you have full flexibility.  With a data only e-SIM I did run into the problem someone mentioned, while trying to buy excursion tickets, post cruise, they wanted to send a text to verify stuff with no other option.  I was unable to buy tickets because of this.  I've decided the way to go is just get Airalo's voice and data e-Sim next time, it's really not much more money and solves the only issues I had.  Also, I was surprised how little data I actually used on the 15 day cruise on the e-SIM. I only used it when near port and on land though.  

[rmalbers]

11 hours ago, benjaminnicholas said:

FYI:  Expedition ships are using Starlink, so it's much speedier than Ocean or River ships.

I think all the VO ships were converted to Starlink around a year ago.  I counted, I think it was eight, Starlink antennas on one of the VO ships.  Starlink worked better than the satellite TV service they use on VO Saturn when near the arctic circle that's for sure.

Edited February 13 by rmalbers