Essential vs. Premium Internet for voice calls?

[vieux_carre]

Can you make audio only calls (e.g. FaceTime audio only, Viber audio only, Zoom with no video, Teams, etc.) with the less expensive “Essential” internet plan?

 

Also, is the Essential plan just slower, or do they block anything besides email, web surfing, & social media?

[Pushpit]

I am on QA at the moment with the Essentials package, and I have made calls from Skype and the NHS version of Teams, and both worked fine. There was a slight latency on the calls but I can get that on land more often than not. Both pieces of software are a bit sluggish. It's best to call from your stateroom to get a more consistent bandwidth, in public areas it can bounce around a bit depending on what everyone else is doing.

[Wordzz]

On QV earlier this year I was also able to make WhatsApp calls using the Essentials package.

[tacticalbanjo]

I've done FaceTime video calls on the essentials package. My husband and I came to the conclusion that it might be difficult to block FaceTime without blocking other Apple services like iMessage.

 

Some websites are blocked on the Essentials package. I was able to access most of what I wanted although Reddit seems to be on the block list as is TikTok both of which I would consider to be social media although the TikTok block is understandable due to the bandwidth requirements.

[Pushpit]

From what I can make out, the throttling on Essentials (for streaming) is fairly crude and reasonably easy to side-step if you know a bit about internet protocols. 

 

You are correct about Reddit, incidentally, it is blocked under conventional Essentials, I tried it just now. But available as a side-step.

[harveyb1]

What is a side-step?

[Pushpit]

50 minutes ago, harveyb1 said:

What is a side-step?

A workaround would be another word for it. I'm being deliberately opaque since it would be fairly obvious to those who know about these things; and for those who don't would have managed not to use these workarounds in other contexts.