Starlink on Beyond, a disappointment.

[CruisingWalter]

On 10/3/2022 at 5:28 PM, Charles4515 said:

Elon is a "genius". A genius at overpromising. 

 

I'm not an Elon fan but Starlink has 'promised' to have gaps and coverage fully updated by the end of Q1 2023. The same time RCCL expects to have all of their ships converted. It was even noted when all of this was announced that Starlink still had gaps in their coverage and was planning to have that addressed by Q1 2023.

 

In this case, it's too soon to say the company has overpromised. 

https://paxex.aero/starlink-inter-satellite-links/

[NutsAboutGolf]

11 minutes ago, WheresWalter said:

 

RCCL has said all the ships will be converted by the end of the first quarter 2023 which coincides with the planned deployment of thousands more Starlink satellites to improve the coverage and fill in the wide gaps in their coverage right now.

 https://paxex.aero/starlink-inter-satellite-links/

 

I know in Europe their coverage is not as good as the Caribbean yet..  It's interesting to hear Celebrity is offering Basic and Premium internet options. On our Symphony of the Seas sailing in a few weeks, there's only one option, Voom + Surf. They've eliminated the 'basic' option and the price of the Voom+Surf has not changed. 

The timeline has already been pushed forward, for X, only 7 of 12 ships are scheduled to go live by the end id Q1.

Edited November 27, 2022 by NutsAboutGolf

[CruisingWalter]

1 minute ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

The timeline has already been pushed forward, for X, only 8 of 12 ships are scheduled to go live by the end id Q1.

Do you a link to your source? I can't find any reference to the timeline being pushed back. Only the original announcements from RCCL. 

[NutsAboutGolf]

6 minutes ago, WheresWalter said:

Do you a link to your source? I can't find any reference to the timeline being pushed back. Only the original announcements from RCCL. 

Short of it, X posted this schedule of their internet page and later replaced it with “coming soon”.  In the following thread one person claims they’re ahead of schedule by a week or two.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/index.php?app=core&module=system&controller=redirect&url=https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2888068-resolved-the-scheduleship-order-of-when-starlink-will-be-active-on-the-fleet-exist/?source=122648&key=21d255a022e82086306ec19327c884915161a1d252f7a55742ac9a353e95843a&email=1&type=notification_new_comment

Edited November 27, 2022 by NutsAboutGolf

[Charles4515]

12 minutes ago, zitsky said:

So there was a problem and you received a discount?  
 

I just don’t expect any technology to be perfect.  

Yes. I don’t expect it to be perfect but if there are major issues I go to guest services. I don’t just accept it. 

[NutsAboutGolf]

Just now, Charles4515 said:

Yes. I don’t expect it to be perfect but if there are major issues I go to guest services. I don’t just accept it. 

I’ve complained about the internet, guest services always sends me to the iLounge

[zitsky]

2 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

I’ve complained about the internet, guest services always sends me to the iLounge

Guest services always tells me, “well you know where the lifeboats are”.  Or maybe that was my parents?

[mahdnc]

48 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

Yes. I don’t expect it to be perfect but if there are major issues I go to guest services. I don’t just accept it. 

 

47 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

I’ve complained about the internet, guest services always sends me to the iLounge

 

During our recently completed TA on Constellation, the Celebrity Today warned us in advance that the internet speed would be especially poor during the middle stage of the crossing and it was--it was unusable for about a day and a half. 

 

During that time I spent an hour in the iLounge using one of their iMacs to print out something. While there, I observed a steady stream of passengers coming to the iLounge asking about the internet outage ("when will it come back"?)and they all received some form of renumeration in the end without asking for it. The most common form was getting their Basic Wi-Fi package upgraded to Premium for free.

 

In fact a few passengers came to the iLounge to have their Elite minutes activated because they didn't know how. In each case the iLounge employee explained that the internet was not operating at the moment, but he would increase the number of free minutes that they would get because of the inconvenience. 

 

So lesson learned, it does pay to go to the iLounge if you have a problem. The employees are motivated to keep all their customers happy--after all, aren't they subject to evaluation on the post cruise customer satisfaction survey? The ability to upgrade passenger's Wi-Fi packages or add minutes cost them nothing and I was impressed how often they resorted to it. 

 

[Charles4515]

1 hour ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

I’ve complained about the internet, guest services always sends me to the iLounge

I always go to the iLounge first if there is a problem. 

[Charles4515]

7 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

During our recently completed TA on Constellation, the Celebrity Today warned us in advance that the internet speed would be especially poor during the middle stage of the crossing and it was--it was unusable for about a day and a half. 

 

I knew there was going to be poor service in the Norwegian Fjords as  it is very north for the satellites they were usings coverage, geostatioary satellites, and the geography, there was no alternative then. They also warned us in the Celebrity Today. It wqs unuasable at times but I did not complain as we were expecting that.

[zitsky]

30 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

I knew there was going to be poor service in the Norwegian Fjords as  it is very north for the satellites they were usings coverage, geostatioary satellites, and the geography, there was no alternative then. They also warned us in the Celebrity Today. It wqs unuasable at times but I did not complain as we were expecting that.

Do you think expectations were too high for Starlink?  If you expect poor service in Norway why not elsewhere?  (I am not a Starlink engineer.)

[mahdnc]

58 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

I knew there was going to be poor service in the Norwegian Fjords as  it is very north for the satellites they were usings coverage, geostatioary satellites, and the geography, there was no alternative then. They also warned us in the Celebrity Today. It wqs unuasable at times but I did not complain as we were expecting that.

 

No one complained to the iLounge techs for the hour I was there either

[Charles4515]

42 minutes ago, zitsky said:

Do you think expectations were too high for Starlink?  If you expect poor service in Norway why not elsewhere?  (I am not a Starlink engineer.)

 Geostationary satelites orbit at the equator. So the farther north the coverage gets worse  We sailed to the North Cape which is far north as you can go. There are also mountains. You need a line of sight to aim the antenna at the satelite. I also read about the poor servicein advance  on Cruise Critic. Starlink is putting up thousands of low orbit satelites in different orbits. I expect Starlink to get better. Expectations may be too high now. Time will tell about the future. You can have the satelite coverage but you also have to have the bandwidth. So the backend is important. 

[grandgeezer]

6 hours ago, mahdnc said:

 

 

During our recently completed TA on Constellation, the Celebrity Today warned us in advance that the internet speed would be especially poor during the middle stage of the crossing and it was--it was unusable for about a day and a half. 

 

During that time I spent an hour in the iLounge using one of their iMacs to print out something. While there, I observed a steady stream of passengers coming to the iLounge asking about the internet outage ("when will it come back"?)and they all received some form of renumeration in the end without asking for it. The most common form was getting their Basic Wi-Fi package upgraded to Premium for free.

 

In fact a few passengers came to the iLounge to have their Elite minutes activated because they didn't know how. In each case the iLounge employee explained that the internet was not operating at the moment, but he would increase the number of free minutes that they would get because of the inconvenience. 

 

So lesson learned, it does pay to go to the iLounge if you have a problem. The employees are motivated to keep all their customers happy--after all, aren't they subject to evaluation on the post cruise customer satisfaction survey? The ability to upgrade passenger's Wi-Fi packages or add minutes cost them nothing and I was impressed how often they resorted to it. 

 

What did they do to make up for not being to provide the product you paid for over these five days? 

A reputable company would make it right without being asked. You paid them so it’s up to them to make it right. Whoops, I forgot, this is the cruise industry. Asked and answered.

[zitsky]

51 minutes ago, grandgeezer said:

What did they do to make up for not being to provide the product you paid for over these five days? 

A reputable company would make it right without being asked. You paid them so it’s up to them to make it right. Whoops, I forgot, this is the cruise industry. Asked and answered.

Standard practice for slow internet is a refund of the cruise fare.  
 

/joke

 

🥸

Edited November 27, 2022 by zitsky

[mahdnc]

1 hour ago, grandgeezer said:

What did they do to make up for not being to provide the product you paid for over these five days? 

A reputable company would make it right without being asked. You paid them so it’s up to them to make it right. Whoops, I forgot, this is the cruise industry. Asked and answered.

 

I don't think you really had a serious question for me to answer. 

Edited November 27, 2022 by mahdnc

[kearney]

Wow... I see all this discussion of internet speed and think back on why we started cruising to begin with. Back in the day.. I actually had a director who called back my boss from the ski slopes because of a problem...that when he arrived back at the office... the director forgot what the problem was..  We began cruising vs other options..because it was the one place I could tell my company that they couldn't reach me unless willing to spend a lot for a call to sea. Never had a problem and since then..I use it to disconnect..only connecting using Elite benefits to periodically check email. Man am I glad I retired before total availability was the norm.

[HMR74]

9 hours ago, mahdnc said:

 

 

During our recently completed TA on Constellation, the Celebrity Today warned us in advance that the internet speed would be especially poor during the middle stage of the crossing and it was--it was unusable for about a day and a half. 

 

During that time I spent an hour in the iLounge using one of their iMacs to print out something. While there, I observed a steady stream of passengers coming to the iLounge asking about the internet outage ("when will it come back"?)and they all received some form of renumeration in the end without asking for it. The most common form was getting their Basic Wi-Fi package upgraded to Premium for free.

 

In fact a few passengers came to the iLounge to have their Elite minutes activated because they didn't know how. In each case the iLounge employee explained that the internet was not operating at the moment, but he would increase the number of free minutes that they would get because of the inconvenience. 

 

So lesson learned, it does pay to go to the iLounge if you have a problem. The employees are motivated to keep all their customers happy--after all, aren't they subject to evaluation on the post cruise customer satisfaction survey? The ability to upgrade passenger's Wi-Fi packages or add minutes cost them nothing and I was impressed how often they resorted to it. 

 

 

Let me throw this into the mix.

 

The Royal and X apps. alnmost everything is doen ther. Airline paper tickets. Dinosaurs use them. Airlines and Cruise lines are hardly the only ones. Princess has an app where it knows where you are and you order food or drink and you get it--has to be perfected a little.

 

The other night onboard, I forgot what it was, probably show reservations on Royal, I could not find proof that we had the reservation so the crew member was kind enough to take the phone from me to see we had reservations.

 

On a 787 today heading home, it took me a while to figure out the entertainment, and the earphone plug was found in a crevice  at thigh level. Had to use flashlight on phone to see where it went.

 

Kids, Feh. all these designers -I remember when everything needed  was on armrest.

Us seniors are either gonna adapt ofrdie.

 

 

 

[mahdnc]

10 minutes ago, HMR74 said:

 

Let me throw this into the mix.

 

The Royal and X apps. alnmost everything is doen ther. Airline paper tickets. Dinosaurs use them. Airlines and Cruise lines are hardly the only ones. Princess has an app where it knows where you are and you order food or drink and you get it--has to be perfected a little.

 

The other night onboard, I forgot what it was, probably show reservations on Royal, I could not find proof that we had the reservation so the crew member was kind enough to take the phone from me to see we had reservations.

 

On a 787 today heading home, it took me a while to figure out the entertainment, and the earphone plug was found in a crevice  at thigh level. Had to use flashlight on phone to see where it went.

 

Kids, Feh. all these designers -I remember when everything needed  was on armrest.

Us seniors are either gonna adapt ofrdie.

 

 

 

 

My post was to share the customer service response I observed during the hour that I spent in the iLounge. I don't understand what your adapt-or-die reply meant to add to it. 

[zitsky]

1 hour ago, mahdnc said:

 

My post was to share the customer service response I observed during the hour that I spent in the iLounge. I don't understand what your adapt-or-die reply meant to add to it. 

Uh oh.  It’s the literal police.  I mean the people that police language not the people that arrest criminals.

 

[mahdnc]

8 minutes ago, zitsky said:

Uh oh.  It’s the literal police.  I mean the people that police language not the people that arrest criminals.

 

The language is fine. It's the subject that baffles me (esp as a direct reply to my post). So maybe subject police, but I have no powers, just questions. 

[mtempelaar]

Adding my two cents on performance of Starlink.  I've always paid for internet since it was first offered on cruises. 20 years ago I was running reports remotely from Celebrity iLounges.  Now I can do in my cabin.  I often have to work on cruises randomly for emergencies. 

 

Internet over all cruiselines has always been a challenge but Celebrity has always been more reliable that others.  For NCL in 2019, we found that coverage and speed was good but they deliberately blocked access to some things (like some iPhone games).   This time we had Beyond with premium due to Suite.  We were traveling Puerta Plata, St Thomas and St Maarten.   We also have TMobile's Magenta Max plan so we can use local mobile service onshore.

 

News/Games/Downloading EBooks and Apps:

• No problems at sea except some rare random 5 minute slowdowns.  Otherwise just fine.  In port, slower.  Had to switch to cellular twice on the ship while docked.
• No blocked games
• TikTok lurking did just fine, as did random short Youtube videos.

 

Audio and Video Calls:

• Docked: I did struggle in St Maarten as I was having an unplanned video job "interview" via Webex.  I had no choice but to use Starlink in my cabin with my work laptop.  Thankfully VP has known me for years so video wasn't required and it was more informal "hey you interested?".  Audio worked, video did not.
• At sea:  Had to attend two emergency conference calls. 
  • Webex Audio conference call.  No issues.  Worked perfectly.
  • Microsoft Teams audio call.  Would not connect and I was unable to attend.  I suspect it was blocked but I'm not 100% sure.  My team had to text me pieces of the conversation.  I would text back and they would convey my responses to the vendor hosting the call.   

 

Online chatting and SMS messaging:

• SMS:   Zero problem at sea or docked.  Minor slowdowns in sending pics or video but nothing major.  Was able to text back and forth with my GVP at sea without any issues.  
• Webex chatrooms:  Zero problems actually texting.  But I noticed that my Webex chatrooms weren't updating dynamically at time.  I had to "catch up" by going into the app and chatrooms.
• Push Notifications: I kept getting the spammy push notifications from Amazon, UberEats, BedBath and Beyond, etc.  I was too lazy to turn them off.  So if you like spam, you are in luck!

   

[NutsAboutGolf]

14 hours ago, HMR74 said:

 

Let me throw this into the mix.

 

The Royal and X apps. alnmost everything is doen ther. Airline paper tickets. Dinosaurs use them. Airlines and Cruise lines are hardly the only ones. Princess has an app where it knows where you are and you order food or drink and you get it--has to be perfected a little.

 

The other night onboard, I forgot what it was, probably show reservations on Royal, I could not find proof that we had the reservation so the crew member was kind enough to take the phone from me to see we had reservations.

 

On a 787 today heading home, it took me a while to figure out the entertainment, and the earphone plug was found in a crevice  at thigh level. Had to use flashlight on phone to see where it went.

 

Kids, Feh. all these designers -I remember when everything needed  was on armrest.

Us seniors are either gonna adapt ofrdie.

 

 

 

 

Can't come soon enough, can't wait for the inevitable day when you have the option order dinner off your phone on X.

 

On planes, the newer in-flight entertainment is slowly evolving (already on newer JetBlue birds) to include bluetooth.  There was a time when the powers that be thought everyone wanted to be on their phones so they thought that meant folks wanted to watch tv/movies on their phones.  They learned that's only half true, that people want to use their phone.  Now you have seatback screens playing the entertainment which can be controlled by your phone.

[goodoldan]

On 11/26/2022 at 12:36 PM, Charles4515 said:

Again it is not just the speeds it is the bandwith. Beyond is new so the backend is likely the newest and latest. They probably have not done any upgrade of the backend on Oasis and my experience with Royal/Celebrity is that they have not upgraded the backends. They will still advertise it as Voom or Xcelerate and charge the same prices for lower quality service. 

 

Not sure about the other ships, but the Celebrity Edge-class ships have a WiFi access point in EVERY cabin. A poorly designed or overloaded WiFi design could cause more problems than the satellite connection... and at least on the Edge that doesn't seem to be a problem. A recent trip on the Edge (late November 2022)... it's first with Starlink active.. showed typical speed tests (with the premium package) of about 4 MBPS down and 2 MBPS up from my cabin, and about a 60 mSec (idle) latency. That's about comparable to my 4G cellular connection at home. I conducted several long (like 1 hour) phone calls using Google Voice over the link, and each one was fine, with no drop-outs, etc. Also watched some streaming HD video (recorded on my Xfinity cable box at home) and it was perfect.

 

 

Going out on the Constellation in a couple of weeks... no telling if they'll have Starlink by then or not.

Edited November 28, 2022 by goodoldan

[crusinthrough]

I have not read this whole thread but was just on the Beyond.  I had no problems.  I could send emails, watch TikTok and YouTube videos with no buffering.  Most importantly, the connection hardly dropped.  On the Edge, I had to constantly sign in on the app.  I find this annoying.