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Statlink Internet confirmed!


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For those that want to stay connected to the world this is huge news. Statlink Internet to all ships in the coming months. It's gotta be better than Voom. Oasis this past cruise was extremely bad Internet, Adventure was honestly useless. Here is the article. 

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/

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31 minutes ago, Paid4c4 said:

Great news!  Last week on Adventure of the Seas VOOM was all but useless.  Starlink has to be an improvement.

Bill

Yes! We were on in late July and it was nearly completely useless, I could not agree more. 

One big question though, is this gonna cost more because Voom is freaking expensive as it is?

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42 minutes ago, Mike n Ky said:

Saw where it is supposed to be available on most ships by end of March next year. Would love to take a 2 or 3 week cruise where I can work consistently a few hours a day from the ship but need much better internet to do that.

Woo hoo so this will be on Oasis for our May cruise. Looking forward to that because Voom was not good on even Oasis. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I noticed that the internet package prices/options has changed for Harmony 11/26 voyage. There is only one option now: Voom Surf+Steam for $12.99/day (with no multiple devices discount).  
The cheaper Voom Surf option was eliminated, and the Surf+Steam option price was reduced from $19.99/day to $12.99/day.
I wonder if they have switched their internet provider to Starlink. 

Anyone has information about this?

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1 hour ago, oliver9 said:

I noticed that the internet package prices/options has changed for Harmony 11/26 voyage. There is only one option now: Voom Surf+Steam for $12.99/day (with no multiple devices discount).  
The cheaper Voom Surf option was eliminated, and the Surf+Steam option price was reduced from $19.99/day to $12.99/day.
I wonder if they have switched their internet provider to Starlink. 

Anyone has information about this?

And it's cheaper! Now that's a plus!

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50 minutes ago, twangster said:

Oh wow!  It's back to 2019 prices!

a.k.a. - if we jack up the rates for a year then lower them no one will notice it's the same price as before.  

SMH 

Yeah I pre ordered Internet for 2 devices for our Oasis cruise in May and I just checked, prices are the same. I got like 45 bucks off on the Labor day sale. 

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On 9/15/2022 at 5:18 PM, oliver9 said:

I noticed that the internet package prices/options has changed for Harmony 11/26 voyage. There is only one option now: Voom Surf+Steam for $12.99/day (with no multiple devices discount).  
The cheaper Voom Surf option was eliminated, and the Surf+Steam option price was reduced from $19.99/day to $12.99/day.
I wonder if they have switched their internet provider to Starlink. 

Anyone has information about this?

I have noticed the exact same thing on Allure on my 11/13 7 day  voyage.  The price back in March was $146.93, then in early September it dropped to $118.93, and today I saw it has dropped again to $104.93.  They also dropped the Voom Surf and only offer the Surt & stream.  I know they have been working on installing Starlink on Allure, and should be about done.  I'm hoping by my November sailing it is up and running.  I just find it strange that if RCCL knows Starlink would be up and running by then, why are they dropping prices and doing away with the basic Voom Surf package?  Anyway I have been locking in my prices and keeping my fingers crossed.

Matt, what say you?

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On 9/20/2022 at 2:31 PM, Mike n Ky said:

I just got a new offer for our Odessey cruise in January and while the prices aren't as low as some above it has both Surf as well as Surf and Stream options. I am wondering if Surf will be just as good as the pricier Stream once Starlink is completed, if it is by then. 

They could always throttle the surf package down to a slower speed.  That is how they do it now with the old VOOM.

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3 hours ago, Jailman said:

They could always throttle the surf package down to a slower speed.  That is how they do it now with the old VOOM.

Yeah I am afraid people will not see the astronomical jumps in speed they are hoping for. They cant open the pipe full throttle for everyone like they did on that first couple of testing weeks. They need to load balance to give the most users the best possible experience. I think a modest bump would be nice. Say Surf and stream up to 6 or 8 DL/3 or 4 UL. Surf like 3 DL and 1 UL. And Probably the addition of a third tier at 10-20 DL/5-8 UL. A "Business Class" so to speak.  Just a guess. Or maybe the Surf tier just goes away.

Also most of the older ships with the retro-fitted Wifi (Which is still the majority of the fleet) still have plenty of dead spots that no matter how good the Service to the ship is will not be helped. That "Last Mile" as they say, is still going to hinder the quality of the connectivity.

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1 hour ago, Al Miller said:

Yeah I am afraid people will not see the astronomical jumps in speed they are hoping for. They cant open the pipe full throttle for everyone like they did on that first couple of testing weeks. They need to load balance to give the most users the best possible experience. I think a modest bump would be nice. Say Surf and stream up to 6 or 8 DL/3 or 4 UL. Surf like 3 DL and 1 UL. And Probably the addition of a third tier at 10-20 DL/5-8 UL. A "Business Class" so to speak.  Just a guess. Or maybe the Surf tier just goes away.

Also most of the older ships with the retro-fitted Wifi (Which is still the majority of the fleet) still have plenty of dead spots that no matter how good the Service to the ship is will not be helped. That "Last Mile" as they say, is still going to hinder the quality of the connectivity.

It may seem counterintuitive but capping wifi speeds has been proven to cause more problems than it solves.  

WiFi is a shared medium much like the old days of ethernet hubs.  When you cap or throttle users you prolong their session.  If you are downloading a 10MB email attachment you will download all of that 10MB regardless how long it takes.  For as long as you are downloading that 10MB you are consuming time on the radios of the access point you are attached to.  Basically your activity is congesting the spectrum for as long as it takes to complete your download. 

The best solution that has been proven time and again is to get your download done as quickly as possible which then frees up the spectrum for other users. 

When users are capped the problem becomes more prevalent as the number of connected users grows.  The spectrum becomes more saturated because all stations are consuming time slots for longer periods.      

The same logic applies to streaming.  Some people assume that when streaming TV you have a constant stream of bits coming in but in reality you receive a series of data spikes that are buffered in your device.  Each of those spikes is just like downloading something like a 10MB file.  The best solution is to allow your device access to all the bandwidth that is available at that moment in time so that your spike of data is completed as quickly as possible.  The worst case scenario is capping your throughput so that your spikes are smoothed out into one long constant download.  That ties up the radio spectrum making it less available for other users.  

Shared medium always works best when users jump on and off rather than constantly consuming the resource.  Think of a party line telephone.  If one user is constantly using it no one else can.  It only works if all users jump on and off as quickly as possible and for data that requires allowing them access to the whole pipe.

Ask any WiFi pro and you'll hear this time and again.  Twenty years ago it was thought to be a solution but since that time the WiFi professional community has come to the conclusion that user data caps don't work and make the problem worse.  Royal is so outdated in their approach to technology.  

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15 minutes ago, Jailman said:

That is  a very good explanation of what is happening.  Having said this, do you believe that RCCL will throttle the speeds on Starlink?

Royal has long proven it doesn't consider technical merits but is more likely to do what will generate the most revenue.

Speeding things up by lifting per users caps solves a technical problem but it doesn't generate any new revenue and for Royal that is why they won't do it.  

They could turn the existing 3.5 Mbps "Surf and Stream" into the lowest plan offered while likely retaining something close to the former rates for Surf and Stream (despite their costs dropping 70 to 90%) and then offer a premium level at $20 or $30 per day that offers faster speeds.  Maybe add a "you're an idiot" rate at $50 per day unlimited to capture the folks that have money to waste.  

The reason I am hesitant to predict what Royal will do is because it's not about doing the right thing or doing a popular thing, it's only about doing the money thing.  If it lowers revenue Royal won't consider it.  It's going to be all about pricing strategies. 

Like the $4,000 Cococay cabana it's not going to be anything most of us will like.  

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