MedallionNet just went live on Emerald Princess

[Wiggums]

MedallionNet just went live yesterday 7/20 on the Emerald Princess while we were docked in Barcelona.  The ships WiFi changed and went from showing up as emerald-princess to MedallionNet overnight.  We also received new invitations with the Princess Patter offering discounts of 25% if you purchased the unlimited plan within the first 24 hours of sailing.

 

I am currently typing this message from somewhere between Barcelona and Gibraltar and the new speeds are definitely better than what they were last week when it comes to DNS resolution of websites and basic load times of things like CNN/CruiseCritic, etc.  Ping times to Google DNS servers (8.8.8.8) are still slow (around 600ms - 800ms) but the packets are not dropping as frequently as they did last week when the ping times were (700ms - 1000+) with many dropped packets.  Currently I am seeing about 4% - 5% packet loss where last week I was seeing 25% packet loss. I couldn't load any CNN/Youtube videos previously and today I can open them after a wait of a minute or so.  Not bad for being in the middle of the ocean and not having to pay per MB or per minute.  My next test will be a VPN app to see if I can stay connected (last week I could not).  Let me know if anyone is interested in more testing/technical stats.

 

Below is a screenshot from speedtest but I think it's pretty inaccurate as it appears there may be some proxying going on as some sites appear cached as well as the speedtest results.

I did the test at 9:15 am local time (it's an at sea day) to try and gauge when many people would be waking and doing their morning Internet routines to see how things are working.

 

 

 

The onboard price is $59 / Unlimited access for 1 device if your Platinum/Elite or $109 (4 devices) for 7 day cruise.  I think the regular price is about 25% more for non Plat/Elite.

I spoke with some crew and they state that their connections are much better with the new system (albeit more expensive for them) than the previous offerings.

 

Almost forgot, we also just received a note under the door that they will be enabling the 4K video in our cabins throughout the cruise.  I can see a CAT5 cable on the back of the TV that's disconnected so I assume someone will be coming into the cabin and hooking things up (yay!).  Currently still on the old crappy analog style channels playing the same movies over and over from the previous week...

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 21, 2019 by Wiggums

[Midnight_Buffet]

Wow that's mighty slow. I thought they pushed it as high speed? 1.7mb isn't what i'd consider 'high speed'. 🤨

Edited July 21, 2019 by Midnight_Buffet

[Colo Cruiser]

Great! Thanks for the update!

 

Our experience with MedallionNet so far on the CB and the Regal has been awesome and lightning fast compared to the old system.

We have seen those test outputs from posters on other ships as they came online and the actual use has been great.

[Thrak]

Thanks for letting us know it's gone live on Emerald. However that's not a speed I would be willing to pay for. I've seen very nice speeds posted on other ships. Hopefully it's just growing pains. I would think the location would be fine for the satellite constellation needed for high speeds. I certainly hope we have better speeds in November when we sail Emerald from Barcelona to Florida.

 

[brt49]

Nice, I'll be on for 2 weeks in a month.

[Lucky TGO]

Thanks for sharing.

Tony