Liberty of the Seas | Internet capacity & VOIP phone calls

[M_BA]

Hello,

 

My wife and I will be cruising the Western Caribbean March 20th - 27th and I have questions about the Internet throughput. I know Liberty doesn't have the higher speed VOOM yet. So, will the current Internet allow for a cellular call via VOIP for phones that can utilize an Internet connection to call? If not, is the quality of Skype and similar apps decent while at sea?

 

As on-board calls are $7.99/minute the Internet for $20/day is more palatable, if possible, to call our young children before bed each night.

 

We're looking forward to see the dry-dock upgrades!

[Clarea]

Hello,

 

My wife and I will be cruising the Western Caribbean March 20th - 27th and I have questions about the Internet throughput. I know Liberty doesn't have the higher speed VOOM yet. So, will the current Internet allow for a cellular call via VOIP for phones that can utilize an Internet connection to call? If not, is the quality of Skype and similar apps decent while at sea?

 

As on-board calls are $7.99/minute the Internet for $20/day is more palatable, if possible, to call our young children before bed each night.

 

We're looking forward to see the dry-dock upgrades!

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

I have read of limited success using Liberty internet for VOIP calls. Some have had a decent connection with Skype, others kept getting disconnected. If you can make the calls either very early in the morning, or late at night, you will have better luck.

[Kamloops50]

Hello,

 

My wife and I will be cruising the Western Caribbean March 20th - 27th and I have questions about the Internet throughput. I know Liberty doesn't have the higher speed VOOM yet. So, will the current Internet allow for a cellular call via VOIP for phones that can utilize an Internet connection to call? If not, is the quality of Skype and similar apps decent while at sea?

 

As on-board calls are $7.99/minute the Internet for $20/day is more palatable, if possible, to call our young children before bed each night.

 

We're looking forward to see the dry-dock upgrades!

 

VOIP programs are usually blocked on cruise ships. They take to much bandwidth from the internet. Passenger internet is only the internet left after the ship departments have used . Skype or any other similiar programs will probably be blocked .

[M_BA]

Thank you for the welcome and information! I can use my phone in the three ports (Georgetown, Falmouth, Cozumel), so I'll see if I want to try the Internet.

[decker12]

Liberty Internet was pretty bad. There is a decent wifi signal throughout the ship (especially considering how much metal is around to block the signal) but the ship's connection to the Internet was pretty slow.

 

It was impossible to watch a Youtube video for instance, let alone any type of Skype / FaceTime / Netflix. I had to switch to the "low bandwidth" setting on Gmail and regular web browsing was possible but really, really slow. I recommend using an Ad Block app so your web browser doesn't have to load any more pictures and data than it needs to.

 

Oddly, the one thing that did work was the Facetime Video/Audio chat that's built into the Messenger app on an iOS device. I was able to have a mostly understandable voice conversation with someone in the USA. Again nowhere near the quality you'd get even on a poor cell signal in the mainland USA.

 

All that being said it was refreshing to be so completely out of touch with the usual constant email / social networking that we're all so used to when at home. There was also no sea of faces staring at iPhones during dinner or the pool deck or during the shows. I turned my phone off and left it in the cabin the entire trip.

[M_BA]

Thank you so much for the analysis. The marginal FaceTime iOS ability to communicate is good to know. I think I'm leaning towards no Internet on-board and using my cell phone in each port (I have no-cost roaming through Google Fi).

[serialcruiser48]

I was just on the Liberty this past Feb and they are currently using the slow high orbit satellite. Ping rates of 800 ms and bandwidth limited to 32 KBs. So email works, web pages load slow and that's it.

I'll be back this May for another week of slow Internet pain. I'm D+ so at least it's not expensive to pile on.