NCL cellphone service at sea - details

[Globaliser]

The cellphone service was live on the Sun last week. It is only supposed to be switched on when the ship is at least 10 miles from land, but they managed to leave it on throughout our call in Costa Maya. Reception is patchy throughout the ship, probably because of the amount of heavy steel in the ship, but I could sometimes get a signal even in my inside cabin.

 

The service uses the GSM system, which may account for why so few people were using it - hence there were no intrusive conversations that I noticed. You must have international roaming enabled by your service provider, and you must be on a contract (prepaid phones are not supported).

 

Scans of the leaflet follow:-

 

 

[dbarry]

I currently use a GSM phone with Cingular Wireless, with "international calling". I was told that I would be charged a roaming charge of less than $2.00 while in the caribbean. Do you know if what you are speaking of is an additional charge? I guess I could call cingular, or should I contact NCL and talk to someone there about Freestyle Cellular Service, what would you suggest?

 

Thanks,

Darlene

[Globaliser]

I think the first port of call would be Cingular. I have no idea what I'm going to be charged, and whether it's going to be any or much different from international roaming whilst ashore. The NCL leaflet was very opaque about that, and I won't get my next phone bill for another couple of weeks.

[shoreguy]

Darlene

 

I see you are on the Spirit. Keep in mind the Sun is the first and only ship with onboard wireless. I think the plan is to see how it goes and then roll out the service to other ships.

 

Also I would check Cingular's website for rates. I know the AT&T Wireless Site had the rates for all the islands.

[dbarry]

Hi Shoreguy,

 

Thanks for the heads up about the Sun being the "first". I'm really not all that technically minded, actually I think that I might be mistaken about the GSM thing. Is there a difference between that and GPS? All I know for sure is that I can and have used my Cingular phone in Grand Cayman and Jamaica and have only paid a $1.99 per minute roaming charge. (I also know that I pay for an international calling plan). This new "freestyle wireless" from at&t do you think that it would "override" my cingular plan while I was aboard the ship. Like you said, I'm on the Spirit, and the question is just for my curiosity.

 

Darlene

[Globaliser]

actually I think that I might be mistaken about the GSM thing. Is there a difference between that and GPS?

First of all, GPS is nothing to do with phones. It is the Global Positioning System, which allows you to know where you are by listening to signals from satellites.

 

GSM stands for Global System for Mobiles (or something like that). It's the mobile phone/cellphone standard used around the world, with the main exceptions of the US, Canada and Japan. There is limited GSM service in some parts of the US and Canada, which is also on different radio frequencies from the GSM frequencies used in the rest of the world, but most North American cellphone users are on a different system altogether.

 

I think that the easiest question to ask is whether your cellphone works in Europe. If it does, it's a GSM.

[dbarry]

See I told you that I didn't know very much about my phone! I'm doing real well when I can actually access my voice mail!!!

 

Thanks,

Darlene

[Globaliser]

Just a small update on this. I've just had my cellphone bill covering this cruise. The day that we were in Costa Maya, the ship's phone service was charging through country code "BMU" (Bermuda), although during the second sea day it charged as a USA network. The charges for an SMS were 40p (about USD 0.74) through Bermuda, but the normal 25p (about USD 0.46) when charging at the normal US rates. I didn't make any voice calls, so don't know how that would have worked out.

 

I was actually more shocked by the normal cost of a call to the UK from the Mexican network when we were in Cozumel - £1.20 a minute (about USD 2.23).