HAL blocking travel routers?

[IPB4IGO]

Today I saw a couple posts on HAL-related Facebook groups from people who said that they recently tried to use their travel routers and were unable to do so. One poster said that HAL "blocked" their router's access.

 

Anybody here with recent experience with this?

[Quartzsite Cruiser]

We got off the Rotterdam two weeks ago, and we were able to use our router for 32 days with no problem.  Don’t know if this makes any difference, but we had the premium wifi package.

[smileyface1948]

We also had the premium internet for 5 weeks and could not use our Rav power travel router Hal does block the signal. We consulted with the internet guru too and he confirmed that. We were very disappointed!

[TAD2005]

As usual,  anytime there's a way to scam a system, some people will take advantage of it.   Travel routers are great if 2 people in a cabin want to share the connection.   But you will also find some enterprising folks who offer their travel router login to friends in nearby cabins, maybe even sell a login to them.   I'm sure that HAL occasionally checks the bandwidth consumption under a single cabin account.   If it was a normal rate for a single device, or even 2, they didn't make a big deal about it.   But when they see way more traffic or multiple outbound IP accesses on a single login than would be possible with one device, then they raise a flag.   Just like people sharing the SBP with friends, sharing a single internet login with multiple friends causes restrictions to be created.   HAL probably now checks the MAC address of every login and if that MAC address belongs to a router manufacturer and not a phone, tablet or laptop manufacturer, they will block that login.   The next step will be people trying to change their travel router's published MAC address to a fake one that will not be blocked. 

[TriumphGuy]

7 hours ago, Quartzsite Cruiser said:

We got off the Rotterdam two weeks ago, and we were able to use our router for 32 days with no problem.  Don’t know if this makes any difference, but we had the premium wifi package.

Does your router support bridge mode? It's my understanding the router has to be in bridge mode to work. Which make/model do you have?

Thanks

[kwb101]

Each HAL plan has a daily limit for bandwidth, so I figure they'll cut you off if you exceed it.

[Quartzsite Cruiser]

2 hours ago, TriumphGuy said:

Does your router support bridge mode? It's my understanding the router has to be in bridge mode to work. Which make/model do you have?

Thanks

We use the Rav Power model RP-WD03 in bridge mode.  I would say the majority of the time, we did not use it since only one of us wanted to be on the internet.  However, every time we used the router, both of us could be on at the same time.  We did not allow anyone else to use our signal.  
 

I understand that the premium package has a daily limit of 500mb. Since we did not steam videos or use Facebook or FaceTime, I doubt we ever came close to the 500 mb limit.

 

We have used the same router on Princess ships with no problem.  I did not change the MAC address of the router.

[Ken the cruiser]

We also use the RP-WD03 with a premium unlimited internet plan and didn't have any issues on our 40 day Maasdam cruise in Oct/Nov 2019. The same holds true for our recent 25 day Island Princess cruise in January. But I must say on all of our future booked cruises, we have free unlimited internet packages for the both of us, so I'm not sure we'll being using it much any more. But, even for that initial cruise, it more than paid for itself at $41 through Amazon.

[Wehwalt]

I suspect HAL is more actively selling multiple-device plans and desires no competition.

[Petronillus]

The day can't be far off when on-board wifi access, including VOIP phone connectivity, will be taken for granted -- and thus no longer a profit center for the cruise lines.

[TAD2005]

23 hours ago, Petronillus said:

The day can't be far off when on-board wifi access, including VOIP phone connectivity, will be taken for granted -- and thus no longer a profit center for the cruise lines.

Very true.  It wasn't that long ago when local cable TV/internet/phone companies used to block the port numbers for VOIP services so you were forced to use their phone service.   Skype and Apple Talk worked aroudn this, and eventually, it became an issue not worth the trouble.   

However, for land based internet, where it is common to have 100 MB/s for each house,  streaming and other high bandwidth services are no big deal.   On a cruise ship, where your only internet connection is through a geo-synchronous satellite, where many other ships are also connected, you have a finite amount of bandwidth.   And that bandwidth is expensive.   Until they develop a better data compression standard, we will be stuck with the limitations we now have for internet at sea.    

[slidergirl]

10 minutes ago, TAD2005 said:

Very true.  It wasn't that long ago when local cable TV/internet/phone companies used to block the port numbers for VOIP services so you were forced to use their phone service.   Skype and Apple Talk worked aroudn this, and eventually, it became an issue not worth the trouble.   

However, for land based internet, where it is common to have 100 MB/s for each house,  streaming and other high bandwidth services are no big deal.   On a cruise ship, where your only internet connection is through a geo-synchronous satellite, where many other ships are also connected, you have a finite amount of bandwidth.   And that bandwidth is expensive.   Until they develop a better data compression standard, we will be stuck with the limitations we now have for internet at sea.    

You mean FaceTime and not Apple Talk, right?  Apple Talk was Apple's proprietary network protocols.  I designed tests for it and ran the tests back in the 90s for cisco Systems.   FaceTime is Apple's proprietary product to compete with Skype.

 

[TAD2005]

23 hours ago, slidergirl said:

You mean FaceTime and not Apple Talk, right?  Apple Talk was Apple's proprietary network protocols.  I designed tests for it and ran the tests back in the 90s for cisco Systems.   FaceTime is Apple's proprietary product to compete with Skype.

 

You are right.   I am a PC guy, and a Cisco CCNP,  (retired) and have had little experience with Apple products.