SpaceX Starlink satellite internet is taking over the world

[captjohn]

Just thinking about the future and if you guys and gals think this would be a possible solution to the slow internet speed on cruise ships ?

 

 

https://www.androidauthority.com/what-is-starlink-1134426/

[Jimmcdaniel]

Sounds promising although at the end of the article it states that this system is designed for fixed connections to homes and businesses. 
 

Regent recently sent my wife a survey asking about personal electronic brand preferences and related topics. We were speculating that maybe they are doing some research in advance of some sort of improvement. 

[Pcardad]

The ships don't need better tech...they need a contract signed by Regent for more bandwidth. It could be 4 times faster tomorrow.

[Pcardad]

PS.....4 times is a guess, it could be 5.

PPS.....I would happily pay for REAL internet speeds.

PPPS.....Navigator has the fastest internet by a small margin.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

I have my heart set on Starlink for our cottage northwest of Ottawa.  Despite being in the (rural part of) the nation's capital, we still don't have broadband. 

 

Right now I would settle for a cruise ship with NO internet at all.  When we first started cruising to the South Pacific 21 years ago, I was very happy to get away from my email--it meant my boss and colleagues couldn't reach me at all!

[SusieQft]

24 minutes ago, Pcardad said:

Navigator has the fastest internet by a small margin.

Is this because it has the same capacity but fewer people using it?

[Pcardad]

I think just a small variation when dailing in to the contracted bandwidth....it is a very very small difference. 

[JMARINER]

On 2/9/2021 at 12:00 PM, Pcardad said:

The ships don't need better tech...they need a contract signed by Regent for more bandwidth. It could be 4 times faster tomorrow.

Bandwidth is not the only problem. High latency times are also a very big slowdown and  there is nothing they can do to fix that. I think Star-link with it's much lower orbits and therefore much lower latency,  would be the real game changer for the  internet experience at sea.

 

J

[Jonoro7]

Regent doesn't appear to utilise on-board caching proxy servers with any respectable size of cache. 

Utilising such would bring dramatic improvements to average speed and latency experienced and no increased running costs.

[Pcardad]

They subcontract it out to MTN/Global Eagle...the hardware is in place, we just need to speak up and tell them what we want. They ought to survey their guests once in a while.

[flossie009]

On 2/9/2021 at 8:00 PM, Pcardad said:

The ships don't need better tech...they need a contract signed by Regent for more bandwidth.

Exactly the impression we received from the on-board IT "consultants", whenever we raised the issue.

 

On 2/9/2021 at 8:09 PM, Pcardad said:

PPPS.....Navigator has the fastest internet by a small margin.

Our worst experiences of poor internet speeds was on one of their newer ships, Explorer.

 

6 hours ago, Pcardad said:

we just need to speak up and tell them what we want.

We have

 

6 hours ago, Pcardad said:

They ought to survey their guests once in a while.

They do; every cruise ................ but no specific questions on the survey regarding Wi-Fi connectivity or internet speeds; simply a rating for the on-board IT consultant 🙄

[Pcardad]

I, and all my clients, write it in on both mid-cruise and end of cruise surveys.