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Internet speed/reliability


johnnycruise2020
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I have sailed on QM2 four times in the last two years and the internet speeds keep getting worse each time. One night I tried to download email at 1:30AM and watched the speed plument from 54MB to 1MB.

 

Skype is notorious for hogging bandwidth and some ships specifically block it for that reason. A couple of blabbermouths can suck up most of the bandwidth and shut out everyone else.

 

If you want to use your phone then that will depend on your cell carrier and the connection with the MCP satellite. Keep in mind however that data rates at sea can add up fast. Some naive first timers return home to a $2400 cell phone bill.

 

You best bet would be to wait until the ship is in port. Most cruise terminals have free wifi. Or just follow the Filipino crew members. They know the best wifi spots.

Edited by BlueRiband
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I have sailed on QM2 four times in the last two years and the internet speeds keep getting worse each time. One night I tried to download email at 1:30AM and watched the speed plument from 54MB to 1MB.

 

 

 

Skype is notorious for hogging bandwidth and some ships specifically block it for that reason. A couple of blabbermouths can suck up most of the bandwidth and shut out everyone else.

 

 

 

If you want to use your phone then that will depend on your cell carrier and the connection with the MCP satellite. Keep in mind however that data rates at sea can add up fast. Some naive first timers return home to a $2400 cell phone bill.

 

 

 

You best bet would be to wait until the ship is in port. Mant cruise terminals have free wifi. Or just follow the Filipino crew members. They know the best wifi spots.

 

 

 

Thanks! Will keep in mind

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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Greetings all! I'm going on my first cruise (Aug westbound TA on QM2) and I am also concerned about internet speeds, but for email downloads. It will be a working cruise for me, with two reports that require data I'll be getting from work. I then would have to post my reports on the web. I assume I'll have to purchase an internet package. I'm a little concerned about getting my reports out, even to someone else to post for me. Are there business rooms with stable internet connections? Thanks for any help!

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Greetings all! I'm going on my first cruise (Aug westbound TA on QM2) and I am also concerned about internet speeds, but for email downloads. It will be a working cruise for me, with two reports that require data I'll be getting from work. I then would have to post my reports on the web. I assume I'll have to purchase an internet package. I'm a little concerned about getting my reports out, even to someone else to post for me. Are there business rooms with stable internet connections? Thanks for any help!

 

 

 

The ships have a dedicated computer room with Apple Macs. Internet can be hit and miss, if ur on their loyalty programme it comes free hours of internet time

 

 

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Thanks for the reply! I'll be bringing my PC laptop. I'm getting a mobile WIFI for our travels in Finland, but I suspect it won't work on the QM2. As long as I can get a connection to download and upload text and pdf files, I should be good to go, even at a snails pace. I'm a patient person (usually).

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Email downloads work best when most people are asleep - after 10:00 at night and before 8:00 in the morning.

 

I've seen people using video chat software like Skype in the middle of the day. Officially it's not supported but I guess they don't block it.

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Unfortunately this is a pet peeve area for me regarding Cunard and QM2. Skype? Forget about it. On my last October crossing on the QM2, I had the experience of standing outside in the corridor after midnight holding my lap top up to the WIFI router just to get a signal strong enough to sign on! Similar experience to sign off. On the QM2, it's just plain bad. You will be able to complete basic functions, but only with patience and difficulty. I maintain that I do not like to pay for a service that I don't get.

 

Unfortunately this sad state of affairs does not exist on all cruise lines. In December on a crossing on Oceania, we found the WIFI service to be far, far, far speedier and superior. Not perfect, but none of the dismal dysfunction on the QM2. So sad to have to write this since we dearly love the QM2. Cunard management has simply chosen to not invest in a modern system.

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Email downloads work best when most people are asleep - after 10:00 at night and before 8:00 in the morning.

 

I've seen people using video chat software like Skype in the middle of the day. Officially it's not supported but I guess they don't block it.

 

If only. That was my strategy until even in the wee hours of the morning it would take forever just to log in. If people are making video calls it would explain a sudden crash of internet speed - the cyber equivalent of chair hogging.

 

 

 

Unfortunately this is a pet peeve area for me regarding Cunard and QM2. Skype? Forget about it. On my last October crossing on the QM2, I had the experience of standing outside in the corridor after midnight holding my lap top up to the WIFI router just to get a signal strong enough to sign on! Similar experience to sign off. On the QM2, it's just plain bad. You will be able to complete basic functions, but only with patience and difficulty. I maintain that I do not like to pay for a service that I don't get.ard management has simply chosen to not invest in a modern system...

 

While I have not had problems with the wifi signal, the speed to sign on gets worse than dialup. I hover over my wireless icon and see 54M, 48M..aha! Sign on now! Then some signal squashes it and the speed plumments. On a December crossing there was no hour of the night where I could reliably sign on. As a Diamond member at least I didn't pay for it. But that negates the perk. What is the point of "complementary" anything if it's not available.

 

Last October, at a call at Sept-Iles, the town provided free wifi/internet at the pier. A number of Cunard house staff employees were using it. That they would need to do so spoke volumes.

Edited by BlueRiband
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Regrettably, the above postings are entirely accurate.

 

QM2 Internet is absolutely appalling & did not improve one scrap after the remastering of the Ship. Meanwhile, the likes of Celebrity now offer a much enhanced service which at least makes it possible to easily download & deal with e-mails etc..

 

It is extremely frustrating to put it mildly that the wonderful experience that the QM2 provides is slightly diminished by this.

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Regrettably, the above postings are entirely accurate.

QM2 Internet is absolutely appalling & did not improve one scrap after the remastering of the Ship. Meanwhile, the likes of Celebrity now offer a much enhanced service which at least makes it possible to easily download & deal with e-mails etc..

It is extremely frustrating to put it mildly that the wonderful experience that the QM2 provides is slightly diminished by this.

 

Another negative aspect of our booking QM2.

How much is unlimited internet on Cunard...

we’ve had it free for years on other lines.

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I'm a network engineer and I manage the Wi-Fi / wired network for a sizable college campus, so I'll offer my observations from using the Internet onboard QM2 over 7 voyages.

 

During QM2's "Remastering" QM2 received an entirely new Wi-Fi network with nearly state of the art Aruba Networks 802.11ac access points throughout the ship providing complete Wi-Fi coverage inside and out. The actual Wi-Fi system is a very nice system and appears to have been well designed for seamless coverage. I would estimate that they spent several million dollars $$ US on the Wi-Fi network improvements.

 

Quite sadly their very nice Wi-Fi network equipment is totally crippled by their horribly inadequate satellite Internet connection. Because the satellite Internet connection was not upgraded at all during the refit or since, the speeds of the Internet onboard has gotten progressively slower with more and more devices connecting to the improved Wi-Fi network.

 

When you hover your mouse over the Wi-Fi connection icon on your laptop and see a "connection speed" of say "45Mbps," this is only referring to the speed of the connection between your Wi-Fi adapter and the Wi-Fi access point that your device is associated with. Unfortunately, this speed is in no way any indication of the actual speed you are getting to the Internet. If you were really getting 45Mbps to the Internet, you could easily stream Ultra High Definition movies from Netflix or do video conferencing without issue. The reality is that the entire ship is likely sharing a 100Mbps-300Mbps satellite Internet connection for everyone including crew to share. I would say that during busy times of the day, the actual speed to the Internet that passengers can get through the Internet package varies from as low as 0bps to maybe 300Kbps, and yes I said 0bps, that's not a typo, very often you can't get ANY data across their slow satellite connection. The connection is so oversaturated with traffic that it drops most data packets, and all the devices onboard are left in a state of constantly trying to retransmit their data with little data actually making it through. Trying to cram that much data through the slow satellite Internet connection is like trying to suck the ocean through a straw. Of course, the timer on your "Internet Package" still counts the time that you can't do anything at all with the connection as time that you have used and the "Internet Packages" are expensive for horrible Internet service. They will give you credits of time back to your account if you complain to the attendant in "Connections" on deck 2 as I have had to do on many occasions. Their system would be more fair if they charged you by the byte like cellular data companies tend to do. The time you are connected to the Wi-Fi costs them nothing, the cost is in transmitting the data to and from the satellite.

 

The reason Celebrity has better speeds is that their parent company Royal Caribbean International has invested millions in a low earth orbit satellite system, which can provide large amounts of bandwidth to their ships. Supposedly, Carnival Corporation has recently signed an agreement with a company to launch similar satellites to be used to improve the Internet connections to their ships, but they are likely several years away from improving access to most of the fleet.

 

If you have to use the Internet for work aboard QM2, I would strongly suggest completing that work early in the voyage, as the Internet speed will get progressively worse as people sign up for Internet accounts and try to use up the time on their accounts later in the voyage. Their accounting server also likes to act up late in the voyage and often won't let you log into your purchased account. I think they probably under specked the accounting server or whoever installed it never actually sailed on the ship to see how it performs under a load, since when the ship is in port hardly anyone uses it. Cunard should not be proud of the state of their IT infrastructure.

 

Good luck with trying to work via the QM2's satellite "Internet" connection!

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I love Cunard but hate the internet onboard. It is some of the worst I've experienced at sea. Slow, unreliable, and frustrating. It reminds me of my old dial up. Having recently sailed on Celebrity, MSC, and Royal Caribbean I was able to experience the best internet I've had at sea. What a difference.

 

Come on Cunard ... get with the program. I know you think your passenger demographic doesn't even know how to use the internet, but that is NOT the case! You need to invest and keep up with the times.

 

At least I never have to pay for it because of the World Club perk, but it sure doesn't take long to see those free minutes dwindle away with each log on.

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Roland 787: Thank you for your post. As the other person wrote, it was not pleasant to read, but now I have a complete understanding of the sad state of affairs for Cunard and I suppose Carnival Corp. They have not kept up with the times or the needs of their customers and as a result, they may be scaring customers away in a competitive business.

 

After the re-engineering of the QM2, there was a published interview with a Cunard exec who stated (I paraphrase) that fast internet was not needed on Cunard ships because customers were on holiday and needed to unplug from their work responsibilities. I found this insulting.

 

I happily no longer work, and I do not need to unplug. But my retirement project is to travel extensively and in the modern age, travel is managed via the internet. Thus I need to be effectively connected to manage my travels: Hotels and tourist apartments, ground transportation, air and train travel, restaurants, maps and directions, shopping. You get the picture. Not to mention the need to keep in touch with loved ones back home. So for me internet connectivity is not a need for my workaholic neurosis or even a frivolous need to play computer games. It's a necessity for me to be a successful traveler. And the last tine I checked, Cunard was in the travel business.

 

So I will continue to book crossings on the QM2 when the schedule works and will stand out in the corridor holding my laptop up to the router praying to log on. I will get by. Pathetic. Maybe I should book more of my crossings on the lines of RCL and NCL??

 

I know this forum is not an effective way to register my frustrations with Cunard and Carnival management. It's clear that they don't really respond to CC except superficially. So I guess I am just venting in one of my pet peeve areas. Thanks for indulging me.

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To an extent I can sympathize with Cunard's IT folks, as in my job as a network engineer I have had to fight with management to be able to purchase necessary additional Internet bandwidth for our college campus. Back when we only had a 100Mbps Internet connection, during peak times the internet on our campus was nearly as bad as it is on board QM2. We had to go from 100Mbps to 1Gbps (1000Mbps) to be able to provide good service to campus and we are currently adding a second 1Gbps connection.

 

 

Ironically, last June two days before boarding QM2 for my Westbound TA, while I was in the bar at the thyme restaurant in the Southampton Premier Inn West Quay, located next door to Carnival House where Carnival UK has the Cunard / P&O headquarters. I overheard some Carnival UK managers having a meeting with people who appeared to be representatives from their satellite Internet provider, talking about how much bandwidth per berth they could offer. I was hopeful they were negotiating for faster speeds, but my recent sailings would not seem to indicate that they have added any satellite bandwidth. I was halfway tempted to interrupt their meeting and beg for them to add more Internet bandwidth to QM2 from a customer standpoint. They really should be embarrassed that the Internet connection on Carnival Corp's flagship the QM2, is so pathetically slow it is almost unusable much of the time. These days customers expect and need to have connectivity particularly on TA's. There are a lot of people who hate flying but need to conduct business on board QM2.

 

 

Pop singer Ed Sheeran, who is a regular QM2 traveler having recorded one of his songs aboard while on a TA, has complained about QM2's Internet on a TV talk show.

 

Sadly, trying to get closer to the Wi-Fi access points in the hallways in most cases won't significantly improve your chances of getting good Internet connectivity, since the bottleneck in your connection is from the satellite dishes on top of the ship to the satellites land based downlink. I've tried using the computers in "Connections" on deck 2 and the speed is no better than from the Wi-Fi. The speed of any Internet connection is only as fast as it's slowest point in the path between you and the servers you are connecting to, and on ships the slowest point is the satellite connection.

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Thanks again, Roland. Now I can avoid standing out in the corridor at midnight.

 

And your anecdote regarding the Carnival business meeting in the Soton hotel was interesting.

 

Thanks for taking the time to educate us.

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Thank you, Roland 787. I am probably only one step removed from a Ludite, but I found your postings both eminently readable and comprehendable. I rather wish that you had interrupted the overheard Cunard people, to provide your insight. Old fogies like my husband and I (early Boomers) find Cunard's internet service frustrating and will grumble but frequently tolerate this, but we are beginning to be out of the travel market. Cunard needs to replace us, and most younger people just will not tolerate such poor ability to communicate.

 

Karen

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After reading all these comments (Thanks Roland787 for the information in your posts), I think I will try to complete at least one of my reports when we arrive in Southampton from Helsinki the day before embarkation. If I scramble, maybe I can even do both reports. Then, I can just relax and play on the voyage. Maybe go listen to the whistle that Mom heard 80 years ago when she took the Queen Mary to the US for a visit (couldn't go back after the war broke out, but she met Dad and that was good :hearteyes:).

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Me, I still look for the Marconi Wireless Room on ships.. but last time aboard QE I couldn't even access my web e-mails as the Yahoo and MSN didn't "recognize the device" (Duh) and wanted to send me a verification code which of course had to go the same accounts I cannot access in the first place. I don't know why most lines have gotten rid of a specific at sea e-mail address while aboard. Bring back the Marconigram and give the bellboys something to really do.

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It was fine for checking email, reading newspaper websites and using the CC app on QV this weekend.

I used my phone in various parts of the ship, including our room on Deck 8.

 

Did you manage to make your Skype call johnnycruise2020 ?

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Hi, does anyone know how strong the internet is for things like a Skype call? Is it wildly different when the ship is at sea v in port. Have got Sea days and port day in Hamburg and would like to Skype a friend x

 

 

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Its seldom fast - its seldom reliable - I suggest don't bother until your in port = turn off and relax, its a cruise......breath.....it can wait.....

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