Internet Speed

[ak1004]

1 hour ago, bob brown said:

I just did an online speed test aboard the Insignia, while many passengers were ashore, and the results were 6.5 mbps download, 1.7 mbps upload…a bit better than old “dial-up” speed, I suppose…🤷‍♂️

 

This is actually pretty good for a cruise ship. On our last SS cruise I got less than 1 mbps..

[toolworker]

After 6 days on Riviera, I give the internet a fail. I was able to Zoom a couple of times on the first two sea days; the second time disconnected after an hour or so.

 

After a day in port, when everyone's internet time is crammed into the evening, it feels like ten years ago. And that's when it's up, but in the last couple of days the ship's connection to the internet has been unreliable.

 

Sigh.

[loriva]

1 hour ago, toolworker said:

After 6 days on Riviera, I give the internet a fail. I was able to Zoom a couple of times on the first two sea days; the second time disconnected after an hour or so.

 

After a day in port, when everyone's internet time is crammed into the evening, it feels like ten years ago. And that's when it's up, but in the last couple of days the ship's connection to the internet has been unreliable.

 

Sigh.

 

Sorry to hear about the poor internet quality, @toolworker.  DH and I have the luxury of not having to have internet to work from onboard and CC.com is the only social media I do, so our internet needs are pretty simple.  We DO, however, have older dogs at home and need to have connectivity to our pet sitter.  Cruise lines really do need to invest in internet today.  Hoping it will be a bit better in the Western Caribbean when we board on Monday.

  

[toolworker]

12 hours ago, toolworker said:

After 6 days on Riviera, I give the internet a fail. I was able to Zoom a couple of times on the first two sea days; the second time disconnected after an hour or so.

 

After a day in port, when everyone's internet time is crammed into the evening, it feels like ten years ago. And that's when it's up, but in the last couple of days the ship's connection to the internet has been unreliable.

 

Update: Ravi, the Internet Manager, phoned in response to my mid-cruise evaluation complaint about the internet problems.

 

He said there were two causes. One is that in some Caribbean ports there is local interference with the satellite signal. Two of these ports are St. Kitts and St. Vincent. This is exactly consistent with that second Zoom of mine. I was on with a good connection from 10 am, but around 11 am, as we were docking in St. Kitts, Zoom disconnected and couldn't reconnect.

 

Another cause, according to Ravi, is that in some spots at sea there is no satellite footprint. In other places the only available satellite is either slow or flaky. Apparently the Lesser Antilles is such an area. That's consistent with my experience over the past days.

 

Ravi said we can expect none of these problems for the remainder of this cruise back to Miami and our next leg to Quintana Roo and Central America.

 

So I am back to endorsing Riviera's wifi for Zoom except for those two kinds of problems. If they reoccur I'll post an update.

 

And from now on when I board a ship and plan to schedule Zooms, I'll ask the Internet Manager if there are days to avoid.

[toolworker]

On 2/16/2023 at 8:04 PM, toolworker said:

So I am back to endorsing Riviera's wifi for Zoom except for those two kinds of problems. If they reoccur I'll post an update.

 

And from now on when I board a ship and plan to schedule Zooms, I'll ask the Internet Manager if there are days to avoid.

 

At the end of our 20 days, we and our traveling companions have done a number of Zooms, mostly without problems except for those discussed above. Bandwidth has rarely been an issue. There have been a few glitches with the ship's wifi.

 

We're anchored now at Great Stirrup Cay with 4 - 5 bars of BTE, and free 4G data from T-Mobile.

[toolworker]

On 10/22/2022 at 10:33 AM, roberts2005 said:

On Marina now.   Almost Impossible to send an email with with multiple photos attached

Have you reduced the size of your file before sending it? Photos from my phone can be as large as 3.5 Mb, and from my camera 4.5 Mb. Those will take a while to send, and can time out before finishing.

 

I right-click (in Windows) and resize the photo to 1920 x 1080. That's plenty of resolution for sharing, and reduces the file size down to a few hundred K, which will go out a lot faster.

 

If you're sending out more than 5 or 6 photos, even downsized, break the batch into multiple emails.

[Ken the cruiser]

That is so great to hear Oceania solved the issue of providing adequate internet service in the B-C category balcony cabins. It was so annoying to lose connection to the nearby router in the hallway every 2-3 minutes when we were last on the Riviera back in 2018! Bravo Oceania!