VOOM will be Fleetwide beginning May 1

[tomatosauce]

Do not forget that Voom does not work everywhere. The satellites necessary for global coverage are still in the future, if they ever happen.

I am not sure they even work during a trans Atlantic.

 

It is actually more complicated than that. The O3b constellation operates in Low Earth Orbit with 16 (from memory but it could be 12 but it is a multiple of 4). This means that it provides coverage worldwide in a band between latitudes North and South of the equator so access is available for a transatlantic, India and about 60% of the globe.

 

The difference in performance that some people have seen is due to something called beam steering. There is a base level of performance that is provided by each satellite by being somewhere under it. This performance is roughly on par with traditional satellites with some variation as it is operating in LEO and it is new.

 

You get great performance when the antenna in the satellite is focussed on a small area using a technique called beam steering which means that rather than being spread over a large area the bandwidth is concentrated on a particular location where, hopefully, a ship is sailing.

 

If this hasn't been activated (and I have no idea how it is done) because the ship is sailing in a region that it doesn't normally sail in then it doesn't get the full Voom experience. This is why there was slow internet on the Quantum on the way to China and why transatlantics may also lack the premium experience.

 

If you want to know more you can read about O3b on the internet.

[Spa girl nana]

Hello Retird. It looks like me and 3 or 4 thousand of my closest friends will be boarding in Seattle on May 20 when you arrive. If you are interested in answering questions about the Explorer, please join us over on the May 20 Meet and Mingle group. I was on this ship in 2009 and it was a great cruise. I would love to hear your review of the shows, menus, ship - well, really anything you want to share.

[Biker19]

It is actually more complicated than that. The O3b constellation operates in Low Earth Orbit. This means that it provides coverage worldwide in a band between latitudes North and South of the equator so access is available for a transatlantic, India and about 60% of the globe.

 

Standard coverage is up to 45 deg N and S latitude and limited service (not sure what the speed drop off is) up to 62 degrees (no service in Reykjavik or Norwegian fjords or south end of S America). So when you get south of Halifax, Vancouver and France, you might have to full speed Voom IF the beam is tracking the ship (the system is supposed to that). On a TA to/from northern Europe that means a few days in the limited service area.

[Biker19]

Because of this ^^^^ limitation, it is very likely most ships will keep their old Internet sat connection when they add real Voom - think ship doing a round the Horn sailing (would have no Internet for several days if only equipped with Voom)

[Cotswold Eagle]

It is actually more complicated than that. The O3b constellation operates in Low Earth Orbit with 16 (from memory but it could be 12 but it is a multiple of 4). This means that it provides coverage worldwide in a band between latitudes North and South of the equator so access is available for a transatlantic, India and about 60% of the globe.

 

The difference in performance that some people have seen is due to something called beam steering. There is a base level of performance that is provided by each satellite by being somewhere under it. This performance is roughly on par with traditional satellites with some variation as it is operating in LEO and it is new.

 

They'd need a lot more than 12 birds (which is what they have) if they were in LEO :) They are MEO, about 8k km, so a significant advantage they have is very low latency compared to standard satellite. It's not just the larger throughput.

[whyrlygig]

Just bought ours for Enchantment in September. This is not something I would normally do but, I think it is a really fair price! Will be nice to have if for no other reason than to text each other when we are separated onboard.

[mo&fran]

the 45 degrees will handle the Med OK, the real question is the beam tracking.

How many ships can it track at one time? If you have 5 ships out there, which one gets the beam?

[mollyeilis]

With the combination of drink package discounts and Voom discounts appearing all of a sudden, I'm getting the feeling that the company has some great need of immediate cash flow.

 

Interesting combo of discounts.

 

And it could very well be that many customers will accept the slow speeds because of the discount...

 

Maybe all the drink packages people will have will dull their sense of fast internet. ;)

[tronaiv]

I can see September working. It took Freedom team three Sunday's in PC to install the antennas. It was up and running about two weeks after that.

Glad to hear that because we went on Freedom last year and the internet was HORRIBLE.

[bunzini]

We were on the Allure TA and it worked well!

[riclop]

I just hung up with RCCL C&A and the agent told me this is a new promotion starting today for the 30% discount packages and as of May 1 all ships will have VOOM.

Thanks for the info.

[brabrant10]

@ clarea where is drink discounts -have not seen anything on anthems page

[awestover89]

We booked VOOM + Stream on our Radiance Alaska cruise next month. Not sure if they'll be adding the actual VOOM hardware during the May 1 dry dock or not, but we'll also be north of the ideal band, so not sure what to expect. If it isn't reasonable speed wise I'll most likely ask for a refund, just as the principal of the thing. It might be good price for internet on a ship, but to me it would be false advertising. Without reading CC we'd have no idea that the VOOM they advertise isn't true VOOM, I'd imagine they'll have a lot of complaints if it isn't up to snuff.

[Clarea]

@ clarea where is drink discounts -have not seen anything on anthems page

Drink discounts have been showing up on the Cruise Planner page for the beverage packages.

[Sarvowinner]

Do not forget that Voom does not work everywhere. The satellites necessary for global coverage are still in the future, if they ever happen.

I am not sure they even work during a trans Atlantic.

 

 

Francis

 

VOOM worked brilliantly on our Transatlantic on the Allure in October. We even streamed the Rugby Union World Cup live in our cabin when there was absolutely no satellite TV available.

[Clarea]

VOOM worked brilliantly on our Transatlantic on the Allure in October. We even streamed the Rugby Union World Cup live in our cabin when there was absolutely no satellite TV available.

That's been our experience on transatlantics also, even on ships without VOOM. The internet has been available the entire cruise, while the satellite TV signal goes out for several days during the cruise.

[Baseball fan]

Glad to read this...I was on NCL Escape in Oct and their internet was awful. I had to get online early in the morning to get access, and do a quick check of email. Looking forward to my TA this fall on the Jewel.

[cruisegirl1]

May 1st of what year? :)

M

[ahecht]

It is possible the Voom engineers (third party engineers) have been able to come up with a software modification or internal circuit/hardware modification that allows the existing satellite hardware to connect to Voom without requiring the new satellite receivers to be installed. That could allow Voom to be retrofit into older ships without having them go into drydock/etc. Maybe it just took a while for that solution to be found and tested. Just throwing darts here as to a possible explanation.

 

Of course another possible explanation is that Voom isn't really going active on these ships in May. I guess we'll find out soon enough...

 

VOOM install never required a drydock. The new dishes and receivers can be installed during a normal port day.

 

the 45 degrees will handle the Med OK, the real question is the beam tracking.

How many ships can it track at one time? If you have 5 ships out there, which one gets the beam?

 

Each "spot" can be up to 435 miles in diameter. Rather than have one spot follow each ship in busy areas like the Caribbean and Mediterranean, there will likely be a strategic layout of spots to cover all ships in the region. For example, this picture shows how they plan on covering the Pacific islands:

Edited April 29, 2016 by ahecht

[John&LaLa]

VOOM install never required a drydock. The new dishes and receivers can be installed during a normal port day.

 

 

 

Each "spot" can be up to 435 miles in diameter. Rather than have one spot follow each ship in busy areas like the Caribbean and Mediterranean, there will likely be a strategic layout of spots to cover all ships in the region. For example, this picture shows how they plan on covering the Pacific islands:

 

Never said drydock, but they couldn't do Freedom in one day.