Real world results of Elon Musk's Starlink internet on a cruise ship (FAST!)

[fstuff1]

 

it's been implemented on Celebrity already.

117mps!

That's faster than my home internet.

 

Hope NCL implements it.

 

Interesting enough, i was on the Prima and upgraded to unlimited internet.

I was able to access internet fine except on the last night of the cruise.

Someone on my cruise mentioned that he basically used up alot of his free minutes just trying to get a pages to load. 

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by fstuff1

[PistolPete13]

Good stuff but it's weird to see that thread devolving into an argument about how critical internet access is nowadays.

I was on the Prima last week and was shocked at how bad the Internet was but I've since learned of a reason why from another source.  I'll do my best to paraphrase:

 

Yes the Prima is a brand new ship and is running the latest WiFi access gear on board.  Keep in mind that the satellite bandwidth is limited to a fixed amount.

With all of the new ship tech on board that needs communications (a simple example would be the iPads in the food court), there are dozens of internal devices that need to share the Wifi bandwidth.  Ship systems wireless traffic is given higher priority because they may be critical to operations (sensors reporting conditions to a hub, etc).  This is done via a method on the network switches called traffic shaping.

Guest traffic is given a lower priority. 

It sometimes may appear that Internet speeds are faster on some older ships but that's because onboard systems do not support traffic shaping and there are not as many WiFi dependent devices internally.

Phew, I hope I did an OK job representing that.  My daytime job deals with network comms all the time and this is the first explanation I've seen that makes sense to me.  So take it with a grain of salt but I figured I'd put it out there for people smarter than me to digest and hopefully elaborate upon.

 

 

[SeaShark]

14 minutes ago, fstuff1 said:

 

it's been implemented on Celebrity already.

117mps!

That's faster than my home internet.

 

Hope NCL implements it.

 

Interesting enough, i was on the Prima and upgraded to unlimited internet.

I was able to access internet fine except on the last night of the cruise.

Someone on my cruise mentioned that he basically used up alot of his free minutes just trying to get a pages to load. 

 

 

Given the "new slogan" that you proudly display in your signature, it is a bit weird that you would pay NCL extra for anything. Almost as weird that you sail with them at all...given the way you feel.

 

Any idea why a total stranger would just mention how he "basically" used up a lot of his free minutes just trying to get pages to load? Was there nothing to do or see on the Prima that was more compelling than the Internet?

 

For my upcoming Prima cruise, there are two levels of Internet upgrade offered:

 

 

Remember, those prices are just for seven (7) days.

 

Breaking it down, the Unlimited Wi-Fi Upgrade is the same price as $471.13 per month. While the Unlimited Premium Wi-Fi Upgrade works out to $771.13 per month.

 

Compare the monthly rate to what you pay at home (so we are looking at apples-to-apples) and imagine your reaction if your home Internet was priced along the same lines. I mean, if you're willing to pay that on the ship, surely your home Internet provider has a right to think you'd pay substantially more at home, right?

[SeaShark]

2 minutes ago, PistolPete13 said:

Good stuff but it's weird to see that thread devolving into an argument about how critical internet access is nowadays.

I was on the Prima last week and was shocked at how bad the Internet was but I've since learned of a reason why from another source.  I'll do my best to paraphrase:

 

Yes the Prima is a brand new ship and is running the latest WiFi access gear on board.  Keep in mind that the satellite bandwidth is limited to a fixed amount.

With all of the new ship tech on board that needs communications (a simple example would be the iPads in the food court), there are dozens of internal devices that need to share the Wifi bandwidth.  Ship systems wireless traffic is given higher priority because they may be critical to operations (sensors reporting conditions to a hub, etc).  This is done via a method on the network switches called traffic shaping.

Guest traffic is given a lower priority. 

It sometimes may appear that Internet speeds are faster on some older ships but that's because onboard systems do not support traffic shaping and there are not as many WiFi dependent devices internally.

Phew, I hope I did an OK job representing that.  My daytime job deals with network comms all the time and this is the first explanation I've seen that makes sense to me.  So take it with a grain of salt but I figured I'd put it out there for people smarter than me to digest and hopefully elaborate upon.

 

 

I think you are confusing Wi-Fi (connection between the device and the ship's internal network via the router) with Satellite Internet (connection between the ship's internal network and the Internet). Devices do share the Satellite Internet with guest devices getting limited bandwidth, but that is separate from the ability to connect to the Wi-Fi (for example, you can connect to the ship's Wi-Fi without any sort of Internet plan what-so-ever...you won't be able to see anything other than the free sites and your onboard account, but you can still make the Wi-Fi connection)

 

Those iPads in the restaurant only need an internal connection...no Internet access is required for you to order your food from the kitchen.

[Juncti]

I got the internet on the Breakaway last year and didn't have any issues. Was able to stream stuff and check in on home and work without issue. Not saying it was the fastest in the world but definitely usable.

 

Now a month ago on Carnival Glory that was a joke. You were lucky to get barely 1meg if that. Many times I couldn't get anything to load at all. This was right when they announced their price increase on internet packages. Can't believe they're raising rates when they can't provide the service. 

 

Hopefully Starlink can survive and the cruise lines can all upgrade or at least use it as an additional feed to whatever they have now and we can get better connections. 

 

I am torn on it though, work in computers so cruises for me were always the perfect escape. You could largely be out of contact for the duration, now that work knows internet is available they expect me to be available in case of an emergency since I'm the only IT guy for the company. They pay for it at least, but still. Was nice to be unplugged for a week at a time on rare occasions when we can cruise

5 minutes ago, PistolPete13 said:

Good stuff but it's weird to see that thread devolving into an argument about how critical internet access is nowadays.

I was on the Prima last week and was shocked at how bad the Internet was but I've since learned of a reason why from another source.  I'll do my best to paraphrase:

 

Yes the Prima is a brand new ship and is running the latest WiFi access gear on board.  Keep in mind that the satellite bandwidth is limited to a fixed amount.

With all of the new ship tech on board that needs communications (a simple example would be the iPads in the food court), there are dozens of internal devices that need to share the Wifi bandwidth.  Ship systems wireless traffic is given higher priority because they may be critical to operations (sensors reporting conditions to a hub, etc).  This is done via a method on the network switches called traffic shaping.

Guest traffic is given a lower priority. 

It sometimes may appear that Internet speeds are faster on some older ships but that's because onboard systems do not support traffic shaping and there are not as many WiFi dependent devices internally.

Phew, I hope I did an OK job representing that.  My daytime job deals with network comms all the time and this is the first explanation I've seen that makes sense to me.  So take it with a grain of salt but I figured I'd put it out there for people smarter than me to digest and hopefully elaborate upon.

 

 

 

I'd be surprised, especially on these brand new boats, if they didn't build in some wired backhauls to critical systems across the ship. Not everything network connected would need internet so I could see them having multiple networks and failovers. 

 

I'd also guess that whatever internet service they use if they don't have multiple receivers for service and at least one and maybe a spare providing internet to mission critical things.

 

Would actually be pretty interesting to learn more about how they design these ships networks

[PistolPete13]

Yes, the satellite is a fix quantity that everyone needs to share for external internet access.  The internal Wifi access will all need to share the channel spectrum whether or not they need to get outside internet.  I believe this internal channel space is getting clobbered with many more extra devices in addition to guest devices.  And with lower priority, the guests will see things as super slow.

I know I gave up on my free internet minutes when I realized it took close to 2 mins for me to authenticate to the NCL system before I could even do anything.  It was beyond frustrating unfortunately but I was OK with no access after the first day.

I did spend some time in Starbucks which was next to the IT support desk and boy did I feel bad for the person working there fielding irate complaints.

The Prima being a new ship probably presents its own problems.  I can't imagine running a full spectrum analysis WiFi site survey on a ship that size with a full load of passengers.

P.S., I had a Cisco WAP installed in my state room on the Prima.  The connection was still useless.  At work I remember once installed a WAP meant to cover an entire corner of a building under the desk of an annoying user just to shut them up.  I guess this was poetic justice for me...LOL  

Edited October 19, 2022 by PistolPete13

[Juncti]

@PistolPete13 Another thing to consider is the ship having a lot of metal walls. That's got to play hell on signal

 

Add in the thousands of people all with different devices in a rather confined space and it's wild that it works at all

[PistolPete13]

Now I'm tempted to bring my Ekahau spectrum analyzer in from work and do a full site survey!  Wait, I'm on vacation...

[vwlmember]

2 hours ago, fstuff1 said:

 

it's been implemented on Celebrity already.

117mps!

That's faster than my home internet.

 

Hope NCL implements it.

 

Interesting enough, i was on the Prima and upgraded to unlimited internet.

I was able to access internet fine except on the last night of the cruise.

Someone on my cruise mentioned that he basically used up alot of his free minutes just trying to get a pages to load. 

 

I was on that Celebrity Beyond cruise. We had the standard internet package and were able to stream video without issue. Websites loaded in just a few seconds at most. All of this was happening with a full ship of people using the wifi.

[fstuff1]

3 hours ago, PistolPete13 said:

 I'll do my best to paraphrase:

Yes the Prima is a brand new ship and is running the latest WiFi access gear on board.  Keep in mind that the satellite bandwidth is limited to a fixed amount.

With all of the new ship tech on board that needs communications (a simple example would be the iPads in the food court), there are dozens of internal devices that need to share the Wifi bandwidth.  Ship systems wireless traffic is given higher priority because they may be critical to operations (sensors reporting conditions to a hub, etc).  This is done via a method on the network switches called traffic shaping.

Guest traffic is given a lower priority. 

It sometimes may appear that Internet speeds are faster on some older ships but that's because onboard systems do not support traffic shaping and there are not as many WiFi dependent devices internally.

Phew, I hope I did an OK job representing that.  My daytime job deals with network comms all the time and this is the first explanation I've seen that makes sense to me.  So take it with a grain of salt but I figured I'd put it out there for people smarter than me to digest and hopefully elaborate upon.

 

I doubt that internal wireless traffic has any effect on you surfing the web.

 

I'm assuming Prima is using, at minimum, gigabit switches.

Like the name says, it can handle a gigabit of data per sec and that's per port on that switch.

ie: 16port switch can handle 16gigabits of data per sec.

 

it's unlikely anything on a cruise ship can overwhelm a gigabit switch. (a nuclear carrier sure, but doubtful on a cruise ship)

and there are probably multiple switches on the ship.

 

the wireless access point in the food court for the iPads would use 1 port.

i doubt that passenger internet will be mixed in/allowed onto that wireless access point.

 

i used to think passenger's surfing speed was limited by the satellite bandwidth.

Now i think passenger network  traffic is split between those using free minutes and those that paid to upgrade to unlimited. (hence, less requests for refunds and more $ staying in ncl's pockets)

 

that's based on my own experience on your same cruise. 

i had no problems with my unlimited basic internet except on the last night.

then again, it's just a sample size of 1

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by fstuff1

[IronRobi]

21 hours ago, PistolPete13 said:

I believe this internal channel space is getting clobbered with many more extra devices in addition to guest devices.  And with lower priority, the guests will see things as super slow.

I would be extremely shocked if this were the case. Modern Wi-Fi access points for large venues support 1,500+ clients PER DEVICE. Take NCL's largest ship which has a capacity of roughly 4,000 passengers + 1,800 crew and assume everybody has a device connected plus add the internal systems.... you've got your capacity covered in like 4 access points. Except there are literally hundreds of them all throughout the ship placed in carefully planned and mapped locations by highly trained network professionals. These pro's wire up stadiums for 100,000+ people. 5-6,000 is nothing for them!

 

Your bottleneck is 100% in the satellite connection.

[IronRobi]

World's biggest cruise ship sails through wireless challenges | Network World

 

This is an old one (2010), but an interesting article about network capacity on a ship.

-All traffic runs across a routed 10Gbps MPLS backbone anchored by Cisco 6500 series switches that support a total of 27,000 gigabit Ethernet ports.

-The network has 37 remote distribution points, each fed by more than one fiber source -- the ship contains nearly 2 million feet of fiber

-The wired VoIP phone network has 4,000 extensions including one in each passenger cabin. There are 1,100 IP surveillance cameras to monitor activity aboard ship, and 370 Cisco plasma and LCD IP touch screen signs placed around the ship post notices of daily activities.

-In all, it takes more than 900 access points -- all the gear is from Cisco -- to supply pervasive coverage throughout the vessel.

 

That would be a very robust internal network by today's standards, except this was 12 years ago!! But then there's this...

"The ship uses a 4Mbps down, 2Mbps up C-band satellite connection to reach shore."

[PistolPete13]

Ahh the old Cisco 6500!  I finally retired my last one about 3 years ago.  Still have some backup supervisor cards in storage somewhere.  Those things were monsters and ran forever...

 

[fstuff1]

I'm currently on celebrity beyond, the 1st celebrity ship to get starlink.

 

These are the stats.

Holy fast! (Even for phone internet from service provider)

😮

Edited October 26, 2022 by fstuff1

[PistolPete13]

Good stuff.  I'll be watching you guys sail out in a bit if it doesn't get too foggy.  Have a great cruise!