VOOM Roll Call

[RBKL]

Thanks for all of the replies.

 

It doesn't sound promising for our sailing on the Explorer. We booked The Key, mostly for the internet and departure. We may have to cancel it. Not a good value for slow internet.

[serialcruiser48]

Looks like 03b is being replaced with high orbit garbage on Freedom class. Currently on the Independence and 03b is replaced with 700-800 Ms ping rate high orbit garbage. 

[twangster]

11 minutes ago, serialcruiser48 said:

Looks like 03b is being replaced with high orbit garbage on Freedom class. Currently on the Independence and 03b is replaced with 700-800 Ms ping rate high orbit garbage. 

 

If you see the Voom specialist on the promenade suggest you inquire why. 

 

[serialcruiser48]

2 hours ago, twangster said:

 

If you see the Voom specialist on the promenade suggest you inquire why. 

 

I did ask why, but he had no idea.

[Biker19]

6 hours ago, serialcruiser48 said:

I did ask why, but he had no idea.

I assume the ship is on their backup geo sync sat connection due to some issue with O3B - very likely a temporary issue.

[serialcruiser48]

18 hours ago, Biker19 said:

I assume the ship is on their backup geo sync sat connection due to some issue with O3B - very likely a temporary issue.

The person I was talking to said he'd been on the ship since June and it hasn't had 03B since then. That doesn't sound temporary, but I'm on again next week.

[Biker19]

1 hour ago, serialcruiser48 said:

The person I was talking to said he'd been on the ship since June and it hasn't had 03B since then. That doesn't sound temporary, but I'm on again next week.

That doesn't sound right - if that were true I assume we would have heard about crappy VOOM on LOS before now.

[Biker19]

No changes to ships as far as I know and I don't think RCG ships use this service (Carnival and some others do) but:

 

Speedcast International Limited, a major provider of satellite connectivity to the cruise industry, has announced that its plan of reorganization has been confirmed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.

 

According to a press release, this confirmation definitively clears the path for the company to successfully complete the Chapter 11 process after receiving final regulatory approvals and satisfying customary closing conditions, which is expected by the end of the first quarter of 2021.

 

The company stated that it is poised to emerge with a significantly strengthened balance sheet and the support of Centerbridge Partners and its affiliates as its new owner.

 

“The Court’s confirmation of the plan marks a key milestone in the company’s efforts to become a stronger business and positions us to emerge in the near term, having achieved our goals,” said Chair of Speedcast Stephe Wilks.

 

“Throughout the restructuring process, the company’s global workforce has delivered on its commitments while adapting to change. On behalf of the board, we are immensely grateful for the ongoing patience and trust that the company’s employees, customers and partners have shown in this process,” he added.

 

Under the structural changes, Joe Spytek – who served as Speedcast’s president and chief commercial officer since the company filed for Chapter 11 – will take on the role of Speedcast’s chief executive officer, leading the company upon emergence under the new Centerbridge ownership.

 

Under the terms of the plan, Speedcast is set to emerge with a new $500 million equity investment from Centerbridge, which will be used in part to repay all of its $285 million debtor-in-possession financing, as well as a permanent reduction of all of the $634 million senior secured debt of the Company.

 

The plan also provides for, among other things, a cash payment to holders of secured claims and cash payment to certain of Speedcast’s critical trade vendors. Unsecured creditors will share in recoveries from a litigation trust. The plan does not contemplate any recovery for existing shareholders, who will no longer have an equity interest in the reorganized company following its emergence.

 

Speedcast first announced its decision to recapitalize its business through voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings on Apr. 23, 2020. The reasons that were cited were the impact of COVID-19 on its customers’ businesses, a significant percentage of which are in the maritime and oil and gas industries, as well as the worldwide pause in cruise operations.

 

Speedcast To Undergo Restructuring Under Chapter 11 - Cruise Industry News | Cruise News

Edited January 28, 2021 by Biker19

[Biker19]

I wanted to resurrect this thread since the "glitch" that allowed iMessage texts to go through without a VOOM package was previously correlated to the ship having O3B. Someone reported the "glitch" is still a thing on one ship and wanted to see if anyone else can confirm that on any others?

 

The list as of now:

 

Anthem

Quantum

Oasis

Allure

Freedom

Ovation

Harmony

Symphony

Enchantment

Independence

Liberty

Spectrum

Odyssey

[Biker19]

Occupancy may be in the 50% to 70% range as cruises resume but bandwidth demand is way up, as if ships were sailing full.

 

Demand per person is 25% to 50% higher, and even up to 100% higher on some ships, according to Greg Martin, VP maritime, SES Networks, which provides more than two-thirds of the satellite connectivity bandwidth to cruise operators.

 

Digital behavior and data use at sea have changed dramatically in the past several years before and during the pandemic. Martin cited many reasons for that.

 

Higher crew consumption

On the crew side, the on-boarding process is different now. Much more crew training is conducted online, via live meetings or training portals, instead of in person. Digital consumption for entertainment and communication shoots up while crew are isolated in mandatory quarantine after signing on.

TikTok and more

Passengers are excited to get out in the world and share their experiences, with many more posting video content than in the past. There is greater sharing via Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, which has entered the Top 10 of social platforms on many ships.

'People are not watching long feature films. They're watching shorter things and TikTok is one of the things popping up,' Martin said.

 

People today expect more access to content and, because of the pandemic, they're more comfortable with platforms like Teams, Zoom, Skype and Facetime and are using these for longer periods.

Data-intensive apps, wearables

All this is coupled with cruise lines' data-intensive apps, wearable technology and advanced AI/digital twins. These apps, and wearables that employ RFID technology to detect passengers' location and unlock their stateroom doors, are all on the Wi-Fi network.

 

Two or three times more smart devices are connected to a ship's network now than a few years ago. Martin said it's not uncommon to have 5,000 devices connected and some ships have 10,000 or even a whopping 20,000 or more, up from maybe a few thousand before.

'All that technology — the enhanced Wi-Fi, the RFID, the tags people are wearing, the push toward contactless embarkation, debarkation, muster drills — lots of tablets and devices are used for that,' Martin noted. 'All those things are based on technology and systems on the ship, and a lot of that comes off the ship into the cloud.

 

'It's all in an effort to provide the best guest experience, a personalized experience,' he continued. 'On a Princess Medallion ship you can get into your stateroom — it recognizes you. You can get drinks anywhere on the ship; they know your dining preferences.'

Ship infrastructure on the network

Plus, a lot of ship infrastructure is talking over the network — examples are weather updates, engine/fuel consumption optimization, wastewater and HVAC management. All these systems take data off the cloud. More and more, technicians are tuning things remotely. During COVID, with ships off-limits to vendors, systems have been developed to remotely control, tweak and update components.

Pandemic investments

All of this pushes up bandwidth demand. But, for SES Networks, 'It's a good challenge to have,' Martin said. 'We've made a lot of investments during COVID in our networks, our systems and people ... We didn't scale back. We actually leaned in and made big investments.'

Billions of dollars are going into SES-17, a high throughput, geostationary (GEO) satellite launched in October to provide connectivity services across North and South America and the Caribbean, and the forthcoming O3b mPOWER medium Earth orbit satellite (MEO) constellation.

Coming soon: Multiple gigabits per second

The first mPOWER MEO satellites are expected to launch in late first quarter 2022 with 'game-changing' service starting later in the year. This means providing bandwidth of tens of megabits to multiple gigabits per second — vastly more than now.

 

Martin said mPOWER can deliver up to 2 GBps and it is hoped that will be increased.

Customers for mPOWER include four of the top five major cruise companies. Princess Cruises — which partnered with O3b on MedallionNet Wi-Fi, a critical component of MedallionClass Cruising — became the first to sign on in 2020.

Software dynamically allocates capacity

Besides the revolutionary increase in bandwidth, mPOWER will offer flexibility because its cloud-based software-defined infrastructure can dynamically allocate capacity.

'We're able to provide much more granular service with mPOWER than before. We can can scale up and scale down based on the demands of the ship, exactly how much bandwidth they need,' Martin explained. For example, demand may change if a ship is chartered or if there's a weather event like a hurricane.

 

'And we're not stopping there,' Martin said. 'For O3b mPOWER, 11 satellites are being launched over the next two years. ... even more are coming on top of that. We have the ability to take it further as we see demand.'

 

SES already provides global coverage via its hybrid solution. Its MEO satellites cover plus or minus 50 degrees on the globe, and GEO satellites the rest. 'We have around 70 satellites, 20 in MEO currently and the other 50 in GEO ... Everywhere the cruise lines go we cover with MEO or GEO,' Martin said. 'We're doubling down on MEO with mPOWER.'

Direct partnership

According to Martin, SES works best in partnerships with the cruise lines directly.

'We think it's the right approach, versus the traditional commodity-buying approach ... During COVID we've worked with cruise lines the whole period when they weren't making any guest revenue. I think we're long-term partners now because of that.

 

'We want to be the largest and dominant player in connectivity for cruise ships,' he continued. 'We're on pace to do that ... We're not the only one but we think it makes sense to work directly with the satellite provider and not through a service provider because we have the assets and the capabilities. We own [the satellites].'

 

Martin — who before joining SES worked at Royal Caribbean for 15 years, the last five as IT director and was one of the people who helped created high-speed VOOM — was asked whether great Wi-Fi is still a brand differentiator, or is it just expected by the market now?

 

'It's expected by the market that all ships have great service. Not all do, yet,' he said. 'We think the ships we serve have great or close to very great service but that's not consistent across all ships yet. There's a lot of room to go there.'

 

It also depends on what cruise lines do with that bandwidth. Martin said they need to optimize it for their brand and their guests. He pointed to how Princess, with MedallionNet, 'tailored a solution on top of our service.'

 

How SES is meeting soaring bandwidth demand as cruising resumes (seatrade-cruise.com)

[Biker19]

^ Cliffs notes: Former head of RCI IT says folks are glued to their devices using lots of bandwidth but has a solution down the road.

[Omax4]

Interesting. Thanks for update

[soremekun]

I wonder if Royal Caribbean would consider Starlink and their LEO offering.

[twangster]

29 minutes ago, soremekun said:

I wonder if Royal Caribbean would consider Starlink and their LEO offering.

 

It's not clear if Starlink will be available for mobile platforms. 

 

There is so little information available about Starlink but the consumer version has some service limitations.  Users who move report pretty frustrating experiences.  It seems they only allow so many subscribers in a given area.  If you move they don't guarantee satellite capacity at another address, or if you move back to your original address, there is no guarantee you can get back on the allocated satellite.  It's not exactly clear how the relationship between subscriber and satellite allocated for that service area works.

 

Like many things Musk, the concept is... Trust me, sign up and pay.  

 

Starlink is blaming the pandemic chip shortages for delayed expansion.  

 

• Service is only guaranteed at the Service Address on your order. If you move Starlink outside of its assigned area, a satellite may not be scheduled to serve Starlink and you may not receive internet or may receive degraded service.  By changing your Service Address, you may not be able to return to your original address based on service availability. Once updated, service at your previous address will be disconnected.
• At this time, we are not able to support moves to a different country. Our teams are actively working to make it possible to use Starlink on a moving vehicle (e.g. automobiles, RVs, boats) in the future.