Any Update about Captain's Circle Internet Package Which Changed 4\1\07

[Admiral Horatio Nelson]

Obviously, satellite comms are expensive.

 

But put in dryer language, my point is this: To what extent are charges to passengers via the Internet cafe subsidising the availability to the ship of an open Internet connection?

 

The cynic in me suspects that the answer is "To a very large extent".

 

And it is that that puts it into the same category as "tipping": Purportedly discretionary passenger expenditure is subsidising company costs that are actually basic operating overheads.

 

There is only a connection at all because it's paid for by passengers.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by open internet connection? If you mean that all crew have free internet that you pay for, then no that's not the case. In fact crew members pay for the connection if they want to surf the internet. When I talk about the use, I mean such as work related email, services like bulk ordering of food and other supplies, charging passengers' credit card charges etc. We don't all sit in our cabins talking on CC if that's what you mean? In fact the only people who have access to the internet is the Captain and the PSD on Princess. The rest (and I mean the rest who have any access at all) only have access to internal email meaning email that goes onboard and some to shoreside if they are high enough up the chain.

 

If it troubles you so much, you always have the option not to use it. You are only onboard for a week maybe two, I'm sure you can live without it for that long. It's funny, if they said they were removing the service you would be up in arms. You can't have it both ways, the service is charged to pay for itself and to make a profit, that's how a business works.

 

I think I have explained how the system works and how much it costs well enough for you the reader to make an informed judgement. If you still think that there is some conspiracy to rip you off then that is more about your cynicism than any actual truth. And that is aimed at anyone who still believes there is a big rip of going on.

[JotWorld]

I really appreciate reading all your points of view, even if I don't always agree 100%;)

Thank you for sharing!:)

Jot:D

[Chuck1j]

Everyone one has valid points here but lets put it this way. It doesn't matter what the toll is on the bridge, if it isn't connected to another point it is of no use to anyone. I the case of this service if it doesn't improve passengers will stop using it, as there is no point in using something that does not accomplish what you set out todo. Send an e-mail.:confused:

[Globaliser]

There is only a connection at all because it's paid for by passengers.

Precisely my point. That is exactly what's irritating about the setup.

 

To take another hypothetical example, it would be like being charged $100 per person to eat in one of the speciality restaurants when we all know that the meal could be provided for $10, and then to find out that the cost of crew meals was specifically being paid for out of the other $90 per person rather than from the company's general revenue.

 

It's annoying precisely because it's using discretionary passenger expenditure - at a price well above a fair return on the allocatable cost to the passenger service - to pay for normal overheads. To say that you always have the choice whether or not to spend that money is no answer, as it merely demonstrates why it is so irritating: I would like the extra-charge service and I am prepared to pay a fair price for it, but I simultaneously resent being ripped off.

I'm not sure what you mean by open internet connection? If you mean that all crew have free internet that you pay for, then no that's not the case.

It's an "open connection" in that the ship doesn't have to dial up to it. Subject to temporary outages for some reason, the Internet connection is "always on", a bit like your broadband at home. You just have to log on to the connection. So the ship benefits from 24/7 email, IP data transfer in both directions, etc etc.

If it troubles you so much, you always have the option not to use it. You are only onboard for a week maybe two, I'm sure you can live without it for that long. It's funny, if they said they were removing the service you would be up in arms. You can't have it both ways, the service is charged to pay for itself and to make a profit, that's how a business works.

Actually, I think I made my personal position quite clear here:-

I won't leave the crew out of pocket. But as far as the Internet is concerned, I voted with my feet some years ago. I only use the ship's Internet in emergencies now.

Having said that, I've just remembered that I will be Platinum on my next Princess cruise, so maybe I'll pop in and get my free five minutes' worth of time! ;)

[Admiral Horatio Nelson]

Everyone one has valid points here but lets put it this way. It doesn't matter what the toll is on the bridge, if it isn't connected to another point it is of no use to anyone. I the case of this service if it doesn't improve passengers will stop using it, as there is no point in using something that does not accomplish what you set out todo. Send an e-mail.:confused:

 

And if that were true nobody would use the service so in that respect you are correct. However, I am all to well familiar with the system and although much slower than land based it does work. I use it every day when onboard and am the first to notice when it loses it's signal. I live with it for months at a time and I know it works. My colleagues connect remotely to the ship to repair specialised bespoke software and I communicate with them through this network. Also bare in mind that the splitting of the system mentioned before is by no means a 50 50 split. The service in the cafes has more of that bandwidth than the admin network. And the admin network has far more restrictions on it about what can be accessed.

 

It is a complicated system and the technology uses a pencil beam to connect to the Sat in space, so we have frequent loss in signal. It's frustrating but that is the nature of the beast. Try fitting a satellite TV dish on your car and see how good the reception is! That is essentially what we have but very simplified (as from reception point of view).

 

Many people who complain just don't like the fact that (to them) it's too slow, so they give up and then complain that it didn't work. Or some people try to do things that the system just can't cope with (such as VOIP etc) although it does work sometimes.

 

The time in Cozumel I spoke of earlier was when the proverbial hit the fan. That's when you know the system does work most of the time because catastrophic failure meant people were up in arms and conspiracies where rife.

 

It's annoying precisely because it's using discretionary passenger expenditure - at a price well above a fair return on the allocatable cost to the passenger service - to pay for normal overheads.

 

Very well put, but what are you basing this on in terms of money amounts? Do you know how much it costs to rent satellite bandwidth, buy parabollic equipment, gyros to stabilise the receiver and all the other facilities to make this system work? Because to say what you did, you would need to know this. I am pretty confident that you don't know and your opinion is based on what you 'think' the prices are with no actual true figures in mind. One of the things I get frustrated with especially in the area of IT, is everyone likes to think of themselves as an expert in this field.

 

I can't say this enough (it would seem) "The price of this service at sea is much much more expensive than it is on land." So if you are comparing these two things then your findings are floored.

 

Example, Which is faster, your car or the ship? Which one floats better your car or the ship? This sounds crazy and it is, it's a stupid comparison. This is what you are doing when you compare the ship with land based services.

 

The other (misguided) theory is this, "If you have an always on connection then why do I have to pay for it?" or "I have my own laptop why do I still have to pay?" Just because the C-Band is connected 24/7 doesn't make it any cheaper to provide than having to dial up. This is because again people are comparing the old system (and again a land based system) of dial up where a payment was charged depending on how long you stayed online compared to today's always on broadband, with one fixed payment. Again floored comparison, completely different systems.

 

And like I said earlier, crew wanting to use the internet pay for it just like you. The only crew who have access to the system do so in the execution of their duties.

[Globaliser]

Very well put, but what are you basing this on in terms of money amounts? Do you know how much it costs to rent satellite bandwidth buy parabollic equipment ship gyros to stabilise the receiver and all the other facilities to make this system work? Because to say what you did, you would need to know this. I am pretty confident that you don't know and your opinion is based on what you 'think' the prices are with no actual tre figures in mind. One of the things I get frustrated with especially in the area of IT, is everyone llikes to think of themselves as an expert in this field.

No, I don't claim any expertise in this field.

 

But I do know that when broadband Internet via satellite comms was available on airliners, retail prices were typically in the region of $9.99 for one hour, $14.95 for two hours, $17.95 for 3 hours or $26.95 for 24 hours (source: Wikipedia, although this accords with my recollection). And before you say it: Connexion was not shut down because the retail rates proved to be too low, as it was being shut down almost before it ever went into real service.

 

I know that we are not quite comparing like with like, but those rates are not just in the next ballpark, they're a couple of counties away from what ships charge. And my impression is that ships' equipment is rather lower-tech than what's on aircraft, which have serious space and weight issues and therefore have to use gizmos like solid state phased array antennas to get the same "pencil beam" connection.

[Admiral Horatio Nelson]

No, I don't claim any expertise in this field.

 

But I do know that when broadband Internet via satellite comms was available on airliners, retail prices were typically in the region of $9.99 for one hour, $14.95 for two hours, $17.95 for 3 hours or $26.95 for 24 hours (source: Wikipedia, although this accords with my recollection). And before you say it: Connexion was not shut down because the retail rates proved to be too low, as it was being shut down almost before it ever went into real service.

 

I know that we are not quite comparing like with like, but those rates are not just in the next ballpark, they're a couple of counties away from what ships charge. And my impression is that ships' equipment is rather lower-tech than what's on aircraft, which have serious space and weight issues and therefore have to use gizmos like solid state phased array antennas to get the same "pencil beam" connection.

 

I expected the airliners to come into it at some point. These services have been axed as far as I am aware, at least on the ones I saw advertised. So again not really a good comparison as those services were on a plane and now don't even exist.

 

I just spoke to a contact at MTN and I was told that MTN is only experimenting with this service on three vessels, Caribbean, Dawn and Grand Princess. The reason the service is so slow on the Caribbean Princess is because the signal is still going through a Harris Satellite, not an MTN one therefore not having the same control over the Satelllite means they cannot tweak the best performance out of it.

 

So the service is not yet on all ships.

[Globaliser]

I expected the airliners to come into it at some point. These services have been axed as far as I am aware, at least on the ones I saw advertised. So again not really a good comparison as those services were on a plane and now don't even exist.

But as I've already said: These services were not axed because they were unfeasible or wildly too cheap. The Connexion unit was shut down by Boeing for structural business reasons before the retail market was even really tested. Personally, I fully expect airborne Internet to be back before long.

[SPI_Rick]

Well, this has been an interesting (and somewhat discouraging) thread. I like to use a wireless internet connection while on the ship to send emails to friends and make occasional postings to my website. On prior cruises I've found that the connections can be spotty and the speed slow.....generally related to weather or location.....but were acceptable for my purposes most of the time. The cost was reasonable at $0.35 per minute. I will be interested in what my experience is in 3 weeks when I have my next cruise. Since I'll be on the ship for 27 days (a Transatlantic with a B2B Baltic cruise) would really like to have a good, reliable and cost effective internet connection. If I find the service has deteriorated while the cost has doubled from my last cruise I will be disappointed....angry phone calls and nasty letter to follow.....If I find service similar to what I've had in the past at a reasonable price then I'll be a happy sailor. My hope is that Princess is smart enough to realize that when you increase the price of a product you must also increase the value of the product at least a little. Increasing the price and reducing the value will just generate a bunch of unhappy customers.

[NorcalGuy]

Question for Admiral Horatio Nelson or anyone else:

 

Does using the Internet onboard when the room has fewer people provide any speed benefit (fewer people using the bandwith)?

[gatour]

Also what I think I caught Nelson saying above was that the ship did not have to have an always on connection for the ship function. Basically they could fire up the connection at say 1:00 am, transmit all of the data (credit card charges, orders for food, etc) then turn it off at 1:30 am. The next day repeat the cycle and the ship's "overhead" stuff is taken care of.

 

Let's say it costs $10/minute to transfer at full bandwidth, and for example during this 30 minute time period the ship takes up the full band width then the charge would be $300. After this 30 minute time period the ship has no need for a connection so its charge would be $300/day.

 

Now add in the passenger internet traffic. Lets suppose that for the remaining 23 1/2 hours of the day, the passengers use the full bandwith remaining. That would be 1410 minutes at $10/minute. So their use cost $14100, which someone has to pay either through an internet charge or higher cabin rates, the only altenative would be turn the connection off when the ship did not have a direct need for it.

 

In summation moving data through a satelite connection cost money, think of it is as the long distance charges for your telephone when they charged you per minute.

 

Nelson, please correct me if I misunderstood your above point. Also the $10/minute charge was an arbitrary figure, I have no idea how much it costs to have an satelite connection

[Buddy604]

I just spoke to a contact at MTN and I was told that MTN is only experimenting with this service on three vessels, Caribbean, Dawn and Grand Princess. The reason the service is so slow on the Caribbean Princess is because the signal is still going through a Harris Satellite, not an MTN one therefore not having the same control over the Satelllite means they cannot tweak the best performance out of.

Let me just chime in for a second and say how great it is to have the view from behind the scenes - it really helps clarify things. And, interestingly enough, all the complaints I've seen in the that month or so have been with the Caribbean Princess.

 

Admiral Nelson, can you tell me, does the ship also pay based on traffic volume? In the old days, before the earth's crust had cooled, we used to pay based on packet volume, not connection time, and I'm just wondering if that's the same today.

[sjbdtz]

I have found that if you ask 10 Princess reps, you will get 10 answers ( no 2 the same ).

 

This board will give you much more accurate info

 

 

This is a fun game to play, with Yes or No questions. :rolleyes: ;)

[Admiral Horatio Nelson]

I was referring to before we had the current technology onboard. We used to use Inmarsat-B something the ship still has, it is used for bridge comms in the event of an emergency.

 

Before C-Band (current internet connection) we used an ISDN line that was connected through Inmarsat-B. To use this line back in 1999 cost about $12 per minute. Today it still costs about $7 per minute. We used this until the current system was installed. My point was that if the passengers did not pay for this system it wouldn't be there. The other poster seemed to think that this system was already there and we just hooked up some PCs in a room and called it the Internet Cafe. When that is all backward.

 

After the installation of this system, it was then possible to add to things onboard to make the operation run smoother using this connection.

 

Question for Admiral Horatio Nelson or anyone else:

 

Does using the Internet onboard when the room has fewer people provide any speed benefit (fewer people using the bandwith)?

 

Well not really. If you go in late at night (after midnight) or very early in the morning (say before 6am) you could possibly find it's faster as there is not as much traffic at these times. Just going in when there's no-one else in the cafe wont do it because remember there is alot of other things going on behind the seens. Also that increase might not be that much (enough worth getting out of bed for).

 

As for packet volume, no it doesn't work like that any more.

[Globaliser]

Before C-Band (current internet connection) we used an ISDN line that was connected through Inmarsat-B. To use this line back in 1999 cost about $12 per minute. Today it still costs about $7 per minute. We used this until the current system was installed.

...

As for packet volume, no it doesn't work like that any more.

OK, so how much does the Internet connection cost to run? Is it a 24/7 connection, or does it switch off and does the charging stop when nobody is using it?

 

How much of that cost is paid for by passenger charges?

 

And what contribution to that cost is paid by the company?

[Globaliser]

Also what I think I caught Nelson saying above was that the ship did not have to have an always on connection for the ship function. Basically they could fire up the connection at say 1:00 am, transmit all of the data (credit card charges, orders for food, etc) then turn it off at 1:30 am. The next day repeat the cycle and the ship's "overhead" stuff is taken care of.

 

Let's say it costs $10/minute to transfer at full bandwidth, and for example during this 30 minute time period the ship takes up the full band width then the charge would be $300. After this 30 minute time period the ship has no need for a connection so its charge would be $300/day.

But would the ship now do this? Personally, I doubt it; I rather suspect that the ship and the company would both find it difficult now to survive on old-style "batch" communications.

[pablo222]

Also the price of this system has fallen dramatically over the years since it's inception. The prices have come down and the speed has increased (generally) and I am sure it will continue.

 

When I first used onboard internet on Grand Princess is 98/99,

it was $7.50 for 15 minutes.

 

It's now (on Carribbean Princess) $0.75 / minute

 

So, service was $30/hour, now $45/hour

[whale-watcher]

This was true (suites still get unlimited access, I was in the Vista Suite E732) on the Star last week....I wouldn't have used the Internet otherwise...the performance was horrible.

Thanks, I have been curious about this!

 

Having cancelled our World Cruise booking for several reasons one of which was the internet nonsense. As Elite Princess members i shall be totally furious if Suites still get totally unlimited Internet Access when Princess insisted to me the restrictions applied across the board

This is NOT a free perk...the cost difference between a mini and a VS was substantial for my 2008 Med cruise.

[Admiral Horatio Nelson]

OK, so how much does the Internet connection cost to run? Is it a 24/7 connection, or does it switch off and does the charging stop when nobody is using it?

 

How much of that cost is paid for by passenger charges?

 

And what contribution to that cost is paid by the company?

 

I think I have answered the question of the type of connection more than once. 'The connection is an always on type connection.' There is no switching off, the cost is charged each month regardless of how many people use it. And the cost of this service each month is in the 5 figure amount and I don't mean $109.99!

 

It' funny, I don't think any other service onboard would ever get the scrutiny that this service does, it really is quite remarkable to me.

 

When I first used onboard internet on Grand Princess is 98/99,

it was $7.50 for 15 minutes.

 

It's now (on Carribbean Princess) $0.75 / minute

 

So, service was $30/hour, now $45/hour

 

Doesn't work like that. It's $0.75 cents per minute if you opt for 'pay as you go' (which is designed for people who just want to send one or two emails, There is a minute equivalent of $0.40 if you buy the 250 minute package (for $100) That's approx. $25 for per hour for just over 4 hours of surfing (4 hours 10 minutes to be exact).

 

This was true (suites still get unlimited access, I was in the Vista Suite E732) on the Star last week....I wouldn't have used the Internet otherwise...the performance was horrible.

 

Just for the record, the Star still has the old service for Internet, it has not been taken over by MTN at this moment in time.

 

I think users will find that the GUI (the desktop) on the machines from MTN will be more user friendly and will also allow you to do more as well (assuming they use the same GUI they have with Carnival and NCL etc). For instance messenger can be used, Internet Explorer etc., whereas the program that runs on Princess currently, (Netstop) is fraught with bugs, unstable and very restrictive.

 

Experiment.

 

You have to remember that most users now have broadband connections at home, so they get (at least) 1megabit per second and probably most have 2megs maybe even 8 now. My average transfer rate at home is 1.6 megs. You can run this test yourself very easily at this website.

 

http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/

 

When you get to your ship, run the same test, I do this every day from various machines on my ships to get a baseline of speed on the vessel. I average about between 60-120 kilobits per second on the ship. Sorry this is geek talk but I will make it more clear.

 

1 megabit = 1000 kilobits

 

so the average speed onboard is 15 times slower than what I get at home (and some of you have much faster connections than I do at home). Now those speeds onboard are assuming the connection is a good one and we have no other obstructions.

 

So even if the system is working well, it's going to seem awful to most of you and you just have to accept that it's the nature of the beast. However I can tell you that it does usually work well, and you can get a lot done on this system, you just have to adjust your expectations of what the speed will be. The admin network by-the-way is even slower than the passenger network so you can just imagine!!!

[JotWorld]

Once Again Admiral, Thank you for your on Ship expertise!:)

Jot

[juliejoe]

Once Again Admiral, Thank you for your on Ship expertise!:)

Ditto -

Really appreciate the explanations!

[Pam in CA]

Once Again Admiral, Thank you for your on Ship expertise!:)

Ditto. I just went to the website you recommended and was amazed to get the following result: 11.1 megabits per second. I remember the "good old days" of 64k modems and cheered when they went to 128k.

[JotWorld]

Ditto. I just went to the website you recommended and was amazed to get the following result: 11.1 megabits per second. I remember the "good old days" of 64k modems and cheered when they went to 128k.

 

Pam,

Ditto, & when one of my early PC's went from 5MB Hard Drive to 10MB:eek: ,

someone said, "What do you need all that space for, you'll never use it all?" :D

Jot:)

[star gazer]

Admiral,

 

Thanks for the speed test site. My iMac is 584.6 kb and the comment was "not bad." I still have my 8k Epson HX-20; never did get it upgraded to 16k.

[wtevrfltsurbt]

Admiral,

Thank you for your consistantly calm, rational and very through explanations!

I am guilty of being one of "those" antsy pax who want the ships internet to giddy up and go as if I were at home:rolleyes: :o

In my ignorant state I purchased a top of the line laptop for travel that had no air card etc, it just used my cell companys towers and their sat for reception-cool huh? NOPE! It worked just like the ship internet LOL. Did my upload/download tests etc-it's just the nature of the beast. A learning experience to say the least, a 2500 $ one at that. I have resigned myself to be patient when on the road/ocean/etc and just be thankful I can still communicate via email at all:)

As to cost to use the ships internet etc, I figure it's no different than buying an 8$ cappucino in Rome when I know I can make the same thing at home for pennies, it's just an expense you pay while travelling. I do not feel they are nickle and diming by charging for the service, certain things are included in your ticket, some are not, like the Spa or getting a massage or playing a round of simulator golf or a shore excursion. The prices for these services go up each year too.

JMO