Why do so many people think that a thread on these boards can change the rules on the ship?

[JMKreno]

5 minutes ago, MrMarc said:

From what I have heard, their system can detect the router and block it.  I think that also applies to phones as hot spots.  Since the device has to identify itself to the network, the network just says no.

Has worked on every cruise I've been on in the last 6 years...just recently worked like a champ on Carnival and on the Oasis of the Seas in October. The device I use is fairly common and if they were MAC filtering they would have by now...reminds me of a time "before" routers and you would have to pay PER device for high-speed internet at home in the late 90s/early 2000s. The reason routers became so popular over hubs is because routers allowed multiple devices to appear as "one-device" on the network so people started buying them in droves (and now provide other services like QoS, subnetting, and other fancy things). The ISPs got away from fighting router usage as it's pretty hard to stop consistently..

Edited November 22, 2021 by JMKreno

[MrMarc]

7 minutes ago, JMKreno said:

Has worked on every cruise I've been on in the last 6 years...just recently worked like a champ on Carnival and on the Oasis of the Seas in October. The device I use is fairly common and if they were MAC filtering they would have by now...reminds me of a time "before" routers and you would have to pay PER device for high-speed internet at home in the late 90s/early 2000s. The reason routers became so popular over hubs is because routers allowed multiple devices to appear as "one-device" on the network so people started buying them in droves (and now provide other services like QoS, subnetting, and other fancy things). The ISPs got away from fighting router usage as it's pretty hard to stop consistently..

Interesting.  I know the manufacturer can be identified by the first 6 of the Mac address, but I thought it also had to identify what type device it is.  Obviously I am wrong, or your router has those ports blocked and their network doesn't care.  And determining the manufacturer does not necessarily tell what type of device it is.  For that one, they have the ability to stop it, so if they don't, then I don't think they can complain.

[SRF]

On 11/22/2021 at 6:16 PM, MrMarc said:

From what I have heard, their system can detect the router and block it.  I think that also applies to phones as hot spots.  Since the device has to identify itself to the network, the network just says no.

 

Nope.  Since you only get the bandwidth of one log in, you are not using extra capacity for the system.  And everyone has to stay close to the router.  So pretty much only useful if people stay together.

 

The reason you cannot hotspot a phone is, the phone only has one wifi connection.  So you can only hotspot from a cellular data connection.  Not from a wifi connection.

[Biker19]

12 minutes ago, SRF said:

Not from a wifi connection.

There a few devices which reportedly can do that (I think the S9).

[SRF]

I noticed my SOs Android phone (Zenphone) will share the wifi via Bluetooth.

 

So it seems to be somewhat available to hotspot a wifi connection.