Wi-fi and Starlink

[emam]

P&O and Cunard are rolling out wi-fi with Elon Musk Starlink on all ships by the end of the year.

Reported I Liverpool Echo

Edited September 18, 2023 by emam

[molecrochip]

Correct. Believe Britannia and Arvia will be live before heading to Caribbean.

[Snow Hill]

Bet it won’t reduce the cost of accessing the internet at sea though. 
 

[9265359]

12 hours ago, Snow Hill said:

Bet it won’t reduce the cost of accessing the internet at sea though. 

 

Of course not - hotels, floating or not, have always made an exorbitant profit on providing communications, whether that was phone calls back in the day, or more recently WiFi, and this won't be any different even though owning a Starlink roaming system yourself (£449) would cost less than £3 a day (Starlink Roam) in access charges - I rather suspect P&O (and all the others) will continue to charge far far more than £3 for WiFI.

[david63]

23 minutes ago, 9265359 said:

I rather suspect P&O (and all the others) will continue to charge far far more than £3 for WiFI.

Princess, which is fully Starlink now, prices start from $15 - although there are several ways of reducing that.

[Thejuggler]

Likely to follow the airlines and charge a flat fee which can be £5-£20 per flight.

[david63]

12 minutes ago, Thejuggler said:

Likely to follow the airlines and charge a flat fee which can be £5-£20 per flight.

Or it could go the same way as hotels. A few yeas back hotels were charging £10 a day for Wi-Fi - now the vast majority include it.

 

Cruise lines I suspect will include a basic Wi-Fi connection but to have anything resembling a reasonable connection there will be a charge.

[defbref]

 

3 hours ago, david63 said:

Or it could go the same way as hotels. A few yeas back hotels were charging £10 a day for Wi-Fi - now the vast majority include it.

 

Cruise lines I suspect will include a basic Wi-Fi connection but to have anything resembling a reasonable connection there will be a charge.

Hotels likely dropped the charge because nobody was paying for it, when everybody had cheap internet access on their phones. Cruise lines unfortunately don't have the same pressure so unlikely to drop price or even provide a free basic connection, they don't need to, they have a captive audience to milk.

[david63]

22 minutes ago, defbref said:

they have a captive audience to milk

The captive audience will be those who will want to upgrade to a decent connection.

 

Providing "free" Wi-Fi would be a good marketing tool.

[terrierjohn]

4 hours ago, 9265359 said:

 

Of course not - hotels, floating or not, have always made an exorbitant profit on providing communications, whether that was phone calls back in the day, or more recently WiFi, and this won't be any different even though owning a Starlink roaming system yourself (£449) would cost less than £3 a day (Starlink Roam) in access charges - I rather suspect P&O (and all the others) will continue to charge far far more than £3 for WiFI.

Many hotels now offer free wi fi to all their guests, so perhaps we should be pressuring Paul Ludlow to follow suit. 😊

[pete14]

1 hour ago, david63 said:

The captive audience will be those who will want to upgrade to a decent connection.

 

Providing "free" Wi-Fi would be a good marketing tool.

Even using Starlink, would it have the bandwidth to cope with greatly increased demand if free?

[davecttr]

51 minutes ago, pete14 said:

Even using Starlink, would it have the bandwidth to cope with greatly increased demand if free?

No? imagine Arvia/Iona with about 5000 passengers constantly using their phones like they do at home, that will soon fill up the bandwidth and meal times will become horrific.

[9265359]

8 hours ago, david63 said:

Cruise lines I suspect will include a basic Wi-Fi connection but to have anything resembling a reasonable connection there will be a charge.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if at some point in the future such a basic connection was made a Select benefit - a minimal cost item to P&O to encourage people to upgrade from Saver.

 

Similar to how some cruise companies price their drinks high to encourage people to 'save' money by booking inclusive drinks packages or including those packages with the higher priced fares.

 

4 hours ago, defbref said:

Cruise lines unfortunately don't have the same pressure so unlikely to drop price or even provide a free basic connection, they don't need to, they have a captive audience to milk.

 

Especially now that roaming is an additional cost for most people.

[david63]

2 hours ago, davecttr said:

No? imagine Arvia/Iona with about 5000 passengers constantly using their phones like they do at home, that will soon fill up the bandwidth and meal times will become horrific.

Not really. These days they can have multiple bandwiidths so the "free" one would be very slow whilst the paid one would be a lot faster.

[Spike11]

The latest e-mail update from P&O is now saying that the improved service with be only in all PUBLIC AREAS by the end of the year. “Work will then continue to integrate with integration into cabins” - but with no date given. Hopefully this won’t take too long, as when we do use wifi, it tends to be when we are in our cabin.

[Interestedcruisefan]

Wi-Fi must be such a HUGE income stream for cruise ships that they either will continue to charge for it or if they ever removed the charge would need to take the money some other way

 

They won't be doing us any favours that's for sure

Edited October 1, 2023 by Interestedcruisefan

[Interestedcruisefan]

On 9/19/2023 at 9:31 AM, 9265359 said:

 

Of course not - hotels, floating or not, have always made an exorbitant profit on providing communications, whether that was phone calls back in the day, or more recently WiFi, and this won't be any different even though owning a Starlink roaming system yourself (£449) would cost less than £3 a day (Starlink Roam) in access charges - I rather suspect P&O (and all the others) will continue to charge far far more than £3 for WiFI.

So I can own my own starlink roaming system?

 

Is it portable?

 

Can I take it cruising with me?

 

 

[Selbourne]

13 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

Wi-Fi must be such a HUGE income stream for cruise ships that they either will continue to charge for it or if they ever removed the charge would need to take the money some other way

 

They won't be doing us any favours that's for sure

Although, in reality, I wonder what percentage of customers actually pay for it? I have never paid a penny for WiFi access on any cruise as I’ve never felt the need to. Even now I can still get free internet access in ports as part of my included data and my coverage usually lasts some time before and after arrival when land is in sight. The only time on a cruise that I am without coverage is on sea days and I can live with that. People could still contact us in a dire emergency via the ship. Even when I was working I never accessed work emails whilst on holiday, as that was strictly family time, although I appreciate that those who are self employed may not be able to enjoy that luxury. From what I’ve seen and heard on cruises, those who pay for the shops WiFi seem to experience countless problems that I don’t have using my normal service provider. Hopefully the new provider will alleviate those issues for those who feel that they cannot be without coverage 24/7.

Edited October 1, 2023 by Selbourne

[Interestedcruisefan]

I like to get up early and do a couple of hours each day managing my businesses remotely

 

Both on sea days and port days then enjoy the day same as everybody else as they wake up

[9265359]

22 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

So I can own my own starlink roaming system?

 

Yes, you can personally buy a Starlink roaming setup, and plenty of people with camper vans are doing so. And also plenty of people in rural areas that cannot get a decent 'landline' broadband connection are buying the residential version.

 

And that's before you get to the latest iPhones having emergency access to satellite communications for if you are stuck somewhere where there is no mobile phone coverage.

 

27 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

Is it portable?

 

A box 2' x 1' x 1' weighing about 10kg - so not too bad.

 

29 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

Can I take it cruising with me?

 

People take dafter things on cruises, and unless there is anything in the T&Cs to prevent you...

 

Realistically I can't see people doing so, but my point was that satellite internet access at £3 a day (or likely far less when bought in bulk) cost price is massively marked up by the cruise lines.

[davecttr]

2 hours ago, 9265359 said:

 

Yes, you can personally buy a Starlink roaming setup, and plenty of people with camper vans are doing so. And also plenty of people in rural areas that cannot get a decent 'landline' broadband connection are buying the residential version.

 

And that's before you get to the latest iPhones having emergency access to satellite communications for if you are stuck somewhere where there is no mobile phone coverage.

 

 

A box 2' x 1' x 1' weighing about 10kg - so not too bad.

 

 

People take dafter things on cruises, and unless there is anything in the T&Cs to prevent you...

 

Realistically I can't see people doing so, but my point was that satellite internet access at £3 a day (or likely far less when bought in bulk) cost price is massively marked up by the cruise lines.

Amusing really, imagine all these people wanting to set up their own starlink antennae 😁

 

Smartphone emergency access is for emergencies not yakking to your family/friends/pets. 

Edited October 1, 2023 by davecttr

[9265359]

1 hour ago, davecttr said:

Amusing really, imagine all these people wanting to set up their own starlink antennae 😁

 

Yes, instead of not being able to find space on deck to sunbath, it would not be finding space to set up your satellite connection.

 

1 hour ago, davecttr said:

Smartphone emergency access is for emergencies not yakking to your family/friends/pets. 

 

At the moment...

 

The first iPhone was launched in 2007 and was a 2G phone with only very rudimentary web access, and yet 15 years later when they launched the iPhone 14 it offered built in emergency satellite communication access. Would you be prepared to gamble on what the iPhone 25 will be capable of in ten years?

[paulatsea]

Be very interested to see how good starlink is on ships - I would buy a package if it was good - I don’t currently. Think it’s due on all P&O ships by the end of the year ?

[Interestedcruisefan]

18 hours ago, davecttr said:

Amusing really, imagine all these people wanting to set up their own starlink antennae 😁

 

Smartphone emergency access is for emergencies not yakking to your family/friends/pets. 

One of biggest things happening nowadays is the desire from people to want to be able to work remotely from anywhere in the world

 

 

[david63]

15 minutes ago, paulatsea said:

Be very interested to see how good starlink is on ships - I would buy a package if it was good - I don’t currently. Think it’s due on all P&O ships by the end of the year ?

I had it on Sky Princess earlier this year and found it much better than anything I had experienced on P&O in the past and that was up in the fjords where signal quality is notoriously bad.