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I am cruising on the Navigator next week and wonder if it has Starlink.  I have searched and the only thing I can find is Matt's article from October 14th.  This was his list.  Can anyone help update the list? 

Note:  List below updated Nov 19, 2022

  • Allure
  • Enchantment
  • Freedom
  • Harmony
  • Independence
  • Jewel
  • Liberty
  • Mariner
  • Navigator
  • Oasis
  • Symphony
  • Wonder
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On 11/19/2022 at 10:23 AM, Traveling Mike said:

I am cruising on the Navigator next week and wonder if it has Starlink.  I have searched and the only thing I can find is Matt's article from October 14th.  This was his list.  Can anyone help update the list? 

Note:  List below updated Nov 19, 2022

  • Allure
  • Enchantment
  • Freedom
  • Independence
  • Jewel (very close)
  • Liberty
  • Mariner (very close)
  • Navigator
  • Oasis
  • Symphony

Starlink is on Symphony? That is awesome to hear🙌

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2 hours ago, LCWind said:

I was on Freedom early November. I don’t recall seeing the Starlink logo and the internet speed was slow.

Royal still seems to believe in capping per user speeds.  As ships have been converted to Starlink some Starlink ships are letting the speeds rip and some Starlink ships are retaining the legacy per users caps they used with the old internet provider.  I think they are experimenting with different approaches to see how to proceed forward.

Keep in mind it wasn't the internet provider that made Voom suck, it was the Royal policy of capping user speeds that made the Voom experience suffer.  If they retain the per user caps with Starlink as their internet provider then we have jumped from the frying pan into the fire.  In other words Starlink won't make much of a user experience improvement if Royal stays with their old ways.  

They are switching to Starlink with the primary goal to save money not to improve the user experience.  

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18 minutes ago, Ampurp85 said:

I just got off her and there was a whole day on Thurs where there was no internet.

Satellite internet at sea will always be something different than what we get at home.  

It's amazing to me how people have incorrectly assumed just because Musk is involved the Starlink experience will be better. I'm sure even Elon is shaking his head.  He even states his product is aimed at folks in rural areas who have no better choice.  He isn't trying to represent it is better than other options yet so many people just assume it will be.   

It is cheaper though so as an investor in Royal I am totally on board with reducing costs and increase prices and revenue since people are too eager to pay more for less.

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Starlink will continue to have some growing pains mostly because it's not fully built out yet.  There are thousands of more satellites required to be launched to fulfil their vision of complete.  Starship will hopefully soon greatly assist in that effort.  

Until they can fully enable satellite-to-satellite lasers Starlink will continue to have a lot of localized variability including dead spots.  Galveston based ships are known to have a dead spot as they sail through the lower Gulf and towards the Caribbean Sea.   That will be fixed in due time.  

I see another site claiming Adventure has migrated but I can't find a direct user experience to reference.  

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18 hours ago, twangster said:

Royal still seems to believe in capping per user speeds.  As ships have been converted to Starlink some Starlink ships are letting the speeds rip and some Starlink ships are retaining the legacy per users caps they used with the old internet provider.  I think they are experimenting with different approaches to see how to proceed forward.

Keep in mind it wasn't the internet provider that made Voom suck, it was the Royal policy of capping user speeds that made the Voom experience suffer.  If they retain the per user caps with Starlink as their internet provider then we have jumped from the frying pan into the fire.  In other words Starlink won't make much of a user experience improvement if Royal stays with their old ways.  

They are switching to Starlink with the primary goal to save money not to improve the user experience.  

There are two pieces to the puzzle here.  The onboard wifi infrastructure that users connect with, and then the internet uplink from the onboard wifi infrastructure to "Space" via Starlink in this case.  Just upgrading to Starlink alone may not provide a better end user experience, but it may be a better contract for Royal.  Royal will probably have to upgrade their onboard wifi infrastructure before we, as customers, see any real benefit.  Too many times, I have had good wifi connectivity in the main areas of the ship and terrible connectivity from my stateroom.  This would not be fixed by Royal upgrading to Starlink, but would be fixed by adding more access points for wifi in the dead areas. 

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52 minutes ago, DoomSlayer said:

There are two pieces to the puzzle here.  The onboard wifi infrastructure that users connect with, and then the internet uplink from the onboard wifi infrastructure to "Space" via Starlink in this case.  Just upgrading to Starlink alone may not provide a better end user experience, but it may be a better contract for Royal.  Royal will probably have to upgrade their onboard wifi infrastructure before we, as customers, see any real benefit.  Too many times, I have had good wifi connectivity in the main areas of the ship and terrible connectivity from my stateroom.  This would not be fixed by Royal upgrading to Starlink, but would be fixed by adding more access points for wifi in the dead areas. 

Even older ships have a controller based wifi setup that uses Wifi-5 capable access points.  I typically get wifi connection rates on board the older ships in the 90 - 300mb range.  I am referring to the physical wifi connection rate between my device and the access point, not the internet speed achieved. 

This was recently on Jewel with her "old" wifi environment:

1777158913_wifiman1.png.df71b8a3a0d41fbe884ffb114ee5be4d.png

Jewel still uses the old legacy Speedcast geostationary satellites so the latency to off ship resources is very high yet the PHY connection rate between my device and the access point was at this moment 324 Mbps down and 243 Mbps up on a 40 MHz channel.  Not bad really and that will self-police users to a degree without the draconian 4 Mbps per user cap that Voom typically employs.

Most of the advancements for newer Wifi-6 and Wifi-6E technology is in the 5GHz or 6GHz spectrum with only minor improvements in the 2.4GHz spectrum.  That isn't really going to do much in an environment that relies heavily on the 2.4 GHz band to penetrate steel cabin walls. 

The only area that newer access points will provide some benefit will be in high density locations such as theaters where older access points can't handle several hundred client associations per access point.

Given that Starlink maritime service is currently limited to 350Mbps as a best case on a perfect day they don't really need more than Wifi-5 technology to reach the theoretical limitation of Starlink and even if they invest millions to upgrade all ships to Wifi-6 or 6E due the extensive use of metal walls, ceilings and floors the user experience would not really improve that much. 

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30 minutes ago, twangster said:

Even older ships have a controller based wifi setup that uses Wifi-5 capable access points.  I typically get wifi connection rates on board the older ships in the 90 - 300mb range.  I am referring to the physical wifi connection rate between my device and the access point, not the internet speed achieved. 

This was recently on Jewel with her "old" wifi environment:

1777158913_wifiman1.png.df71b8a3a0d41fbe884ffb114ee5be4d.png

Jewel still uses the old legacy Speedcast geostationary satellites so the latency to off ship resources is very high yet the PHY connection rate between my device and the access point was at this moment 324 Mbps down and 243 Mbps up on a 40 MHz channel.  Not bad really and that will self-police users to a degree without the draconian 4 Mbps per user cap that Voom typically employs.

Most of the advancements for newer Wifi-6 and Wifi-6E technology is in the 5GHz or 6GHz spectrum with only minor improvements in the 2.4GHz spectrum.  That isn't really going to do much in an environment that relies heavily on the 2.4 GHz band to penetrate steel cabin walls. 

The only area that newer access points will provide some benefit will be in high density locations such as theaters where older access points can't handle several hundred client associations per access point.

Given that Starlink maritime service is currently limited to 350Mbps as a best case on a perfect day they don't really need more than Wifi-5 technology to reach the theoretical limitation of Starlink and even if they invest millions to upgrade all ships to Wifi-6 or 6E due the extensive use of metal walls, ceilings and floors the user experience would not really improve that much. 

I see we could get into a long, technical, and fun discussion between us, but I will spare the rest of the board the nerd talk.  I agree with your statements for the most part though and impressed you even had the screenshot of your connection stats from the Jewel.

My comment on the access points was to simply state that there are dead areas of the ship that simply do not have good WiFi coverage and that could be addressed by adding more access points specifically to those dead zones.   I have had several incidents where I could not get a reliable connection in my stateroom by the exterior wall or desk, but that improved if I moved back towards the hallway.  I was not suggesting that they need to upgrade to WiFi-6 or 6E technology.  I agree that the 2.4 GHz range is probably best onboard because of all the metal to go through and because Starlink Premium / Business and Maritime classes are capped at 350Mbps.

I think the biggest reason I posted my comment before is that most people hear Starlink is coming and will be awesome, thinking it will fix all their bad previous internet experiences.  But the reality is that if a previous bad internet experience was had because of gaps in their WiFi infrastructure and coverage, then switching to Starlink would not improve those use cases and people should still expect dead zones onboard.  You also brought up oversubscription of devices in high density common areas like the theater, which is a valid concern too.  Perhaps in those more open areas, they could look at targeting and augmenting with directional 5GHz technologies to broaden the usable spectrum and overall simultaneous device capacity.

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1 hour ago, DoomSlayer said:

I see we could get into a long, technical, and fun discussion between us, but I will spare the rest of the board the nerd talk.  I agree with your statements for the most part though and impressed you even had the screenshot of your connection stats from the Jewel.

My comment on the access points was to simply state that there are dead areas of the ship that simply do not have good WiFi coverage and that could be addressed by adding more access points specifically to those dead zones.   I have had several incidents where I could not get a reliable connection in my stateroom by the exterior wall or desk, but that improved if I moved back towards the hallway.  I was not suggesting that they need to upgrade to WiFi-6 or 6E technology.  I agree that the 2.4 GHz range is probably best onboard because of all the metal to go through and because Starlink Premium / Business and Maritime classes are capped at 350Mbps.

I think the biggest reason I posted my comment before is that most people hear Starlink is coming and will be awesome, thinking it will fix all their bad previous internet experiences.  But the reality is that if a previous bad internet experience was had because of gaps in their WiFi infrastructure and coverage, then switching to Starlink would not improve those use cases and people should still expect dead zones onboard.  You also brought up oversubscription of devices in high density common areas like the theater, which is a valid concern too.  Perhaps in those more open areas, they could look at targeting and augmenting with directional 5GHz technologies to broaden the usable spectrum and overall simultaneous device capacity.

I manage an environment with nearly 3,000 access points.  We still have dead spots.  More access points is not always the answer.  Sometimes more access points makes it worse, not better.  Ships are very challenging environments and will never have perfect coverage everywhere.  

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2 hours ago, Traveling Mike said:

This is on the Navigator of the Seas from my Cabin.  I am able to play Matt's latest YouTube video without a delay while I am remoted into my server at work.

image.thumb.png.8f6f3d831b6db985bedca2ea36fe47b2.png

Curious what public IP addresses they are using and if it stays consistent over the cruise.  What do you get if you browse to ipchicken.com ?

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15 hours ago, twangster said:

Curious what public IP addresses they are using and if it stays consistent over the cruise.  What do you get if you browse to ipchicken.com ?

I am a computer programmer, and the network stuff is beyond me.  When I run the speed test the IP address changes every time.  The first 4 stay the same and the last 5 change.

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3 hours ago, Traveling Mike said:

I am a computer programmer, and the network stuff is beyond me.  When I run the speed test the IP address changes every time.  The first 4 stay the same and the last 5 change.

Interesting.  Thanks.  

Starlink uses local gateways regional to location where you are.  I thought they might tunnel everything back to the US so it will be interesting to see if you get Mexican internet as you sail south.  

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19 hours ago, twangster said:

Curious what public IP addresses they are using and if it stays consistent over the cruise.

Looking back over my results from Oasis.

Did two tests back to back, IP on both were different.

 

Added: Quick search, it seems Starlink does use Carrier Grade NAT.

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I'm not sure if this was answered before. Are the free sites like RoyalCaribbean.com listed from login.com a good indication of the experience you would get if you paid for Internet? I was on Navigator of the Seas from 11/11-11/18 apparently before they switched to Starlink and loading Royalcaribbean.com was terrible.  Are they doing something different with the free access versus paid Internet?

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58 minutes ago, mistertomatohead said:

I'm not sure if this was answered before. Are the free sites like RoyalCaribbean.com listed from login.com a good indication of the experience you would get if you paid for Internet? I was on Navigator of the Seas from 11/11-11/18 apparently before they switched to Starlink and loading Royalcaribbean.com was terrible.  Are they doing something different with the free access versus paid Internet?

Before the migration to Starlink Navigator has had terrible internet for years.  From the days before her amplification she had terrible internet.  That's a large part of the frustration with Royal's Voom packages.  Newer ships had better technology with lower latency and faster speeds yet they charged the same amount on the older ships that had terrible service where it was difficult to stream even if your purchased that capability.  Mariner and pretty much the entire older fleet has terrible internet.  This is why so many are eager for Starlink particularly on older ships.  

Newer ships have better technology compared to Starlink but Starlink costs them significantly less money so they are effectively downgrading the newer ships.

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12 hours ago, mistertomatohead said:

I'm not sure if this was answered before. Are the free sites like RoyalCaribbean.com listed from login.com a good indication of the experience you would get if you paid for Internet? I was on Navigator of the Seas from 11/11-11/18 apparently before they switched to Starlink and loading Royalcaribbean.com was terrible.  Are they doing something different with the free access versus paid Internet?

There are three different levels, and they are all different.  The more you pay the less restrictions are placed on your data.

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But what is the free sites' experience? The lowest tier? Is it a good indication of what the experience will be if I pay? I hate to pay and then beg for a refund when it's useless to me. On Carnival there was some grace period where they will refund your money no problem. I can't remember if it was a period of time or amount of data.

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11 minutes ago, mistertomatohead said:

But what is the free sites' experience? The lowest tier? Is it a good indication of what the experience will be if I pay? I hate to pay and then beg for a refund when it's useless to me. On Carnival there was some grace period where they will refund your money no problem. I can't remember if it was a period of time or amount of data.

No one here knows.  Royal doesn't publish if they cap free sites.

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Extremely interesting conversations here. I’m learning a lot. Particularly interesting to me is the thought that the ship I sail on the most (Anthem) has had pretty good surf and stream IMO primarily because it was built with the idea of having good wifi connectivity. But now I’m learning that the new system may be a downgrade. I’m hoping that the shipboard hardware is what makes the service operate so well for me, and the change over to Starlink enhances rather than degrades the experience. I’m also hoping that per user access is not capped to the point where it also results in less connectivity. Fingers crossed.🤞

Thank you all for your explanations and insight into ‘Introduction to Cruise Ship WiFi Service Class 101’!🤩 …I’m almost ready for the quiz.

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There are a number of temporary factors in play with Starlink. 

Let's start with some history.  Skip if you are not into a long read.

A History Of Satellite Services 

Prior to the introduction of Starlink Royal had two primary satellite connectivity providers.    Speedcast provides legacy geostationary satellite services for the Royal Caribbean Group while SES/O3b use a medium earth orbiting (MEO) constellation to provide services to Royal Caribbean International.   

Geostationary Satellites

Geostationary satellite are very high in the sky which leads to higher latency when sending signals into space and bouncing them back down to earth using a geostationary satellite.  These satellites around 35,786 km above the equator but slightly more distant as you move further away from the equator on the surface of the earth.   That distance causes latency (a.k.a delay) in the area of 600 - 700ms. 

Geostationary satellites as the name suggests are located in a fixed location above the earth.  They are stationary relative to the earth.  As the earth rotates so do geostationary satellites fixed above the equator locked in orbit with the earth's rotation.  From their fixed spot in space they can focus their signal into a footprint much like shining a flashlight onto the surface of a ball (earth).  Since the earth is round a single geostationary satellite in space can't illuminate all of the earth with signal so there are geostationary satellites that cover regions such as North America or Europe or Asia or Australia, etc.    Since governments tend to regulate communications in their own country we usually see satellite service companies that are licensed to operate in specific countries and regions.

Geostationary satellites are in orbit above the equator.  As you move away from the equator on the surface of the earth towards the North and South pole it can become very distant and very difficult to use geostationary satellites so coverage in remote regions such as Alaska or Northern Europe becomes less reliable. 

Legacy geostationary satellite services have been around for decades going back to some of the first satellite services in the second half of the last century.  Geostationary satellite TV services became well known when they were leveraged by companies like DirecTv in the 1990s to launch nationwide satellite TV services in the US.  Other satellite TV providers did the same in other regions using different satellites in that region.  Prior to that satellite services were largely used by industry more so than consumers. 

Suffice it to say this is very proven technology dating back several decades but that is part of its downfall when it comes to modern internet connectivity since the internet didn't exist when the first geostationary satellites were launched.  Many of the geo satellites were launched to service the TV industry so they've had to adapt those concepts to pass internet signals.  The results have led to less than stellar satellite internet services as the internet has matured over more recent times.

Recognizing the evolution of communication requirements over time satellite providers looked to modernize.  In 2010 O3b began to launch a medium earth orbiting (MEO) constellation as a mean to provide more modern connectivity to more places on earth.   By 2014 they were operational and providing MEO satellite services. 

Medium Earth Orbiting (MEO) Satellites 

MEO satellites are moving in an orbit circling the earth.  Several MEO satellites flying in the same or similar orbit are said to be a constellation.  Essentially these satellites are following each other along a similar path in space circling the earth so that there is always one or two overhead a position on earth at any given moment.  Unlike geostationary satellites MEO satellites are moving across the sky relative to a fixed location on earth.  Think of a group of school children playing a game of musical chairs.  As long as the music is playing the children move in a circle following each other circling around the chairs (earth).  As one satellite passes overhead a receiving station on earth establishes connectivity then has to follow that satellite as it moves across the sky.  When a satellite becomes too distant the receiving station on earth finds the next satellite beginning it's pass overhead.  This repeats ad nauseam. 

MEO satellites are closer to the earth, some 8,062 km above sea level versus the 35,786 km height of geostationary satellites.   The closer distance means it doesn't take as long for a signal to reach a MEO satellite and be bounced back down to earth.  This reduces latency or delay down to the 190 - 230 ms range.

Each O3b satellite completes five orbits around the earth every day but being closer to earth means their footprint or ability to cover an area on the surface of the earth is smaller than the potential of a geostationary satellite.   O3b's MEO constellation has operation limits and doesn't have coverage above or below ~ 65° latitude North or South.   As a result they don't currently provide coverage in places like Alaska or Northern Europe.

Eventually O3b was acquired by another company so you will often reference to SES/O3b.  

What it Means to Us Humans

To put things in perspective the human brain can perceive delay in a voice conversation when it is above ~ 250ms or 1/4 of a second. A voice call over a geostationary satellite with 600-700 ms of delay has perceptible delay to humans and it can lead to people talking over each other as both parties can begin talking before the brain hears the words from the other party in the conversation and stops talking.  A voice call over MEO satellites with 190-230ms of delay usually falls under the threshold that most humans can perceive delay resulting in a normal conversation.  

When it comes to browsing the internet more latency or delay means when you try to visit a website it takes more time for the internet to provide the content of that website back to you.  Just like with voice calls the human brain can perceive delay more when it is above a threshold.  To the human brain a delayed internet response can appear to be a slow connection even if the throughput or bandwidth to send and receive information is relatively large.   

In this sense many people will state that latency is the most important aspect of internet connectivity when it reality if the delay is below a threshold most people and most applications can't discern the differences in delay just as they can't with voice calls.  Timing is very important in stock trades involving large numbers of shares and gaming or gamers can be very sensitive to delay since less delay can provide a competitive advantage when trying to beat other gamers in an online game.    If one gamer reacts after 700ms while another gamer can react in 20ms the first gamer is at a significant disadvantage and will probably lose the game every time.

Streaming TV services have gained in popularity over more recent years.  Streaming services work better with lower latency but if a streaming application is coded properly streaming service can work with higher latency, they just need to buffer a few seconds more to build up a local copy of the content before displaying it.  A more latent or delayed connection with ample bandwidth or throughput will usually work fine for most streaming services except for live TV.  Watching Netflix over a geostationary satellite connection will usually work fine as long as there is enough bandwidth.  

Streaming isn't necessarily a problem but voice and video calls or gaming is more of an issue over geostationary satellite. 

What it Means to Royal Ship Internet

Speedcast uses the legacy geostationary satellites for some Royal ships while SES/O3b uses the newer MEO satellites for other Royal ships.

Originally older ships in the RCI fleet were deployed with legacy geostationary equipment since at the time there wasn't anything else (MEO services were not available before ~2014).   

Geostationary satellite providers are naturally interested in selling their services to where there is substantial populations to purchase their services.  Consequently they focus their signals to cover land masses where people and businesses are.  This means that in the middle of oceans the geostationary satellite signals are often very weak since fewer people live in the middle of the oceans.  As the saying goes you can't sell satellite services to fish. 

For cruise ships this means that geostationary satellite internet services away from land and in the middle of oceans is very poor.  This also means that when a ship moves between regions it has to connect to a different geostationary satellite that services countries in that region.  A ship sailing in the eastern or western Caribbean will often have to change geostationary satellites as it sails the itinerary.  

Around the time that Quantum of the Seas was being built O3b began offering MEO satellite services and the satellite company was eager to sign up new clients.  They convinced Royal Caribbean to launch Quantum with this newer technology that was capable of providing much higher throughput internet services with lower latency compared to geostationary satellite services.  Since their MEO satellites were circling the earth ships everywhere could be connected even in the middle of oceans.  It worked quite well and subsequently Royal included O3b on all new ship builds since.  Royal Caribbean International and Quantum of the Seas were an important launch customer for O3b. Quantum was the first cruise ship to use this new technology. 

Royal did go back and retrofit Oasis and Allure, all Freedom class, Majesty of the Seas and Enchantment of the Seas with O3b.  They did not retrofit any other ships so all other Vision, Radiance and Voyager class were left with geostationary satellite equipment.  Newer ships like Harmony, Symphony, Anthem, Ovation, Spectrum, Odyssey and Wonder all launched from the shipyard with SES/O3b.

SES/O3b continued to seek more clients and they scored a big win when they later signed up Carnival PLC.  The parent company agreed to retrofit all ships in the Princess fleet as a trial and based on the outcome would migrate more ships in other fleets under the Carnival PLC umbrella.   MSC also began building ships with SES/O3b satellite services.

Voom (and Gloom)

Despite all of this stuff and the difference between how different ships are connected to different satellite internet providers and different satellites in different regions Royal sold one internet product to guests.  "Voom" was sold as a standard product to guests regardless of the all stuff going on behind the scenes.  Voom is Royal's name.  They could have called it anything, they could have called it "Bob" but they chose the name "Voom" as the name for their internet service plans on board.   

When a guest purchases Voom the guest doesn't know if it's using geostationary satellites or MEO satellites.  They don't know the name of satellite that services Europe or the name of the satellite used when a ship is in Florida.  The guest isn't aware that a ship sometimes has to switch satellites along the itinerary.  The guest just knows they purchased Voom internet.  In reality guests have been purchasing different technology depending on which ship they were sailing and the region they sailed in.  This resulted in different guest experiences despite every guest purchasing "Voom".   

A satellite or even a constellation of satellites has limitations.  With more and more ships signing up for SES/O3b they reached their capacity.  No more ships could be added.  Royal dragged their feet and didn't upgrade the older ships to O3b.   Once other cruise lines signed up with SES/O3b Royal couldn't migrate additional ships to O3b since the constellation was at capacity.  SES/O3b was planning to launch a next generation of their satellites in 2020 to add more capacity.  At one point SES/O3b stated they would soon have enough capacity for all the cruise ships in the world.  With the pandemic the launch of the next generation SES/O3b satellites were delayed.  Only recently has SES/O3b started launching the newest versions of nextgen satellites that should go into service "soon".  

Given all that is involved with launching satellites using expensive rockets the cost to provide satellite services is very high.  Prior to the pandemic Royal was selling Voom plans to cover the high costs associated with the bandwidth they were acquiring from their satellite services companies Speedcast and SES/O3b and making a small profit in the process.  

Once the pandemic hit and the cruise industry was shutdown cruise lines couldn't just park their ships, turn off the internet and go home.  Ships had to sail with skeleton crews and those skeleton crews needed internet access.  The ships needed some internet but they didn't need the same bandwidth or throughput meant for thousands of guests with only ~100 crew on board.  It is understood that cruise lines reduced their bandwidth commitments to lower their internet costs during the pandemic. 

Fortunately cruise lines were able to survive the shutdown and as we all know they started sailing with guests again in summer and fall of 2021.  At that time the cruise lines had received no revenue for many months and they couldn't afford to return their internet bandwidth commitments to pre-shutdown levels.  This worked okay during the initial restart as there were limits on guest capacity.  

Once the capacity limits were removed ship started sailing near capacity.  Cruise lines had mountains of debt and many bills to pay.  Despite ships being full they still were recovering financially from the effects of being shut down.  Despite selling many Voom plans to guests they had to carefully adjust bandwidth commitments with satellite providers while balancing other bills and financial considerations.  Satellite internet is not cheap.  This has led to severely oversubscribing internet throughput as they continue to struggle with the financial impacts of the shutdown.  It has led to the former Voom experience becoming a Gloom experience for guests.  Nothing works well when internet service is severely oversubscribed.  It is a terrible experience for everyone.  Streaming and voice calls that worked great before the shutdown now often led to complaints.  

Starlink

Starlink began launching satellites into a new low earth orbit constellation or LEO.   LEO satellites are much closer to earth.  In the case of the first Starlink satellites they are in the area of around 550 km above the earth.  As we saw with the difference between geostationary and MEO satellites, LEO satellites have much lower delay or latency when sending a signal from earth into space and bouncing it back down to earth.   The delay is well below 100ms.  Starlink has plans for more constellations including some as low as 340 km and 1,100 km above the earth.  The future constellations and new capabilities they bring will result in lowering latency down below 25ms or so Starlink estimates.

As we saw with MEO versus geostationary when a satellite is closer to earth it can't cover as large an area.  Starlink's answer is to deploy thousands of satellites to cover more area on earth.  

The first important point about Starlink is that it is a relatively new service.   It first became operational in a limited capacity in 2020.  This is very new technology just as O3b was new technology in 2014. 

Starlink consists of more than one constellation of satellites.  While one constellation circles the earth in one direction other Starlink constellations circle the earth in different directions at different altitude so they don't run into each other.  Starlink is planning more constellations at different altitudes moving in different directions.  Eventually there will be so many satellites in orbit there will be several overhead to choose from at any given moment. 

Starlink satellites pass overhead much more quickly compared to MEO satellites.  The connection between an earth station and single Starlink satellite can be measured in seconds and low single digit minutes.  The satellites are literally flying by overhead.  A Starlink earth station is constantly switching between overhead satellites depending on which is best at a moment in time.  

This bring us to the next important point about Starlink.  It is evolving.   It isn't done yet and not even close to being completed into the final vision of what it will be in the future.  It is like building an airplane while it is flying.   Starlink is still under construction.  Starlink is new.  They have started to sell services to earn some revenue that can be used to help pay towards the continued evolution of the service. 

The ability to service ships at sea is possible because like the MEO constellation the satellites are circling the earth.  The challenge with providing service at sea is getting the signal back down to earth where it can be connected to the internet.  In the long term that is where the other Starlink satellites that will be at higher and lower altitudes come into play so that satellites can relay signals through each other in order to make it back to land and the internet.  

Starlink has just started to enable some of this type of inter-satellite communication which is how they are providing service closer to the poles including Alaska and the South pole (just recently announced).  As they continue to enable more inter-satellite relay they will be able to cover more of the seas and oceans.  

Important point number three.  Starlink can't provide 100% coverage of all oceans just yet.  There are dead spots today.  This will evolve and coverage will improve over the coming months but today there are dead zones that will be experienced at sea.   It is not a perfect technology and they flat out state there are dead zones with the maritime service.

Most importantly for cruise lines is the much lower price point compares to MEO and geostationary satellite services.  

With the lower cost Royal can once again pass through to it's guests more throughput.  It's not that Starlink is better technology, for cruise ship guests the important effect will be allowing more throughput at lower latency.   The reason why guest will experience higher throughput (lower operating costs) isn't that important, higher throughput and in some cases lower latency will be important to the guest experience.

Modern Times and the migration to Starlink

So that brings us to the state of the fleet prior to Starlink.  Older ships have legacy geostationary satellite equipment while newer ships have SES/O3b.  Bandwidth constraints have made Voom into Gloom on all ship regardless of the technology.

As we saw with MEO satellites voice calls have low enough latency so that most people can't discern any delay with MEO satellite service.  The lower latency offered by Starlink won't be a dramatic improvement for ships that already had SES/O3b equipment.    Royal migrated these ships first (if they were in the US region) so that they could immediately reduce the cost of internet on these ships since SES/O3b has higher charges compared to the Speedcast geostationary service. Starlink maritime as a service isn't fully approved and licensed in all regions so they focused on ships in the US market first where the US FCC has approved it.  

With that mostly complete they have started migrating Voyager class ships from Speedcast to Starlink.  Radiance class is also migrating.  Other than Enchantment which was migrated since it had SES/O3b, we haven't heard as much about the other Vision class ships.  

The migration of Speedcast ships to Starlink will be more transformational.  Guests on these ships will experience a notable improvement as latency drops from 600-700ms down under 100ms.   Voyager class and Radiance class have had abysmal internet even before the shutdown.  These ships will greatly benefit from the Starlink migration.  

Having said that remember that Starlink is still in its infancy and it isn't even close to being completed.  There will be some downfalls to migrating to Starlink and for the guest experience that will primarily involve dead spots in the ocean where they can't provide Starlink coverage just yet.  

Yes there will be down times with Starlink that are not experienced with the long proven but more expensive Speedcast and SES/O3b services.  This will improve over time so if you have a bad Starlink internet day in 2022 that may be completely solved by the time you sail again at some point in 2023.  

What's Next

We don't know what Royal plans to do as ships migrate to Starlink. 

Will Royal continue to use the name "Voom"? 

Will Royal offer more than one level of service?  

Will Royal leverage the lower cost technology to offer basic chat for free?

We don't know.  Time will tell.  

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Ohhhh...recall the days when there was no wi-fi, only an 'Internet Lounge' on Deck 8...when Internet access became available on RCL ships.

Long gone (thankfully!) are the packages of 'Internet minutes'...to be wasted in front of one of the Internet Lounge PCs...as your eyes glazed over staring at the hour glass image on the screen...hoping for something...ANYTHING!...to appear on the screen. 10, 15, 20 minutes...to see only a single email...from Mom hoping you were having a good time. Thanks Mom...but &#%@#$&^$#@!!

🤪😒🙃

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here is something for you network people.  Yesterday I signed into my Microsoft account, and it would not let me until I verified it was me.  The problem is I was signing in from Canada.  Yes, I was between LA and Ensenada and my IP said I was in Canada.  Today I am in Ensenada, and I am showing I am in LA.

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