cell service Alaska

[dustfsu]

Since Alaska is in the US how well have you seen the cell service up there while on a cruise?  And do you put your phone on airplane till you are ready to use it on an Alaskan cruise? Last has anyone had t-mobile and how well is their service up there?  Going on the Quantum in July just curious if I will be able to use my phone.

[Villageidiot]

We have AT&T and had service at least in the port area at every stop. Used airplane mode while we were between ports.

[Matt]

Cell service works very well while in port around the city you are visiting.

Once you leave port, the signal disappears.

3 hours ago, dustfsu said:

And do you put your phone on airplane till you are ready to use it on an Alaskan cruise?

Yes, while at sea

[VicB]

Sailing Ovation early September. How well does Voom work while at sea or in between the fjords, mountains, inside passage, etc.?

[KristiZ]

1 hour ago, VicB said:

Sailing Ovation early September. How well does Voom work while at sea or in between the fjords, mountains, inside passage, etc.?

I’m not sure anyone can answer that question, since the switch to Starlink happened after the Alaska season last year, if I remember correctly. 

[twangster]

We are waiting to learn how well Starlink will work in Alaska.  Later this month the first Starlink equipped ships will arrive in Alaska for the first time. 

[MarvinS]

22 hours ago, twangster said:

We are waiting to learn how well Starlink will work in Alaska.  Later this month the first Starlink equipped ships will arrive in Alaska for the first time. 

I currently live in Alaska (about the same latitude that Seward, AK is at; I live about 80 miles west of there), and just installed Starlink for my residential house last week.  It actually works quite well, and I have about 99.5% uptime.  It's certainly not 100% as I get a few drops with no satellite signal for a few seconds throughout the day, but overall, it is good.  I average about 110Mbps down and 10Mbps up at my house.  Below is the fastest I have seen so far...  

This is a VAST improvement over my former local DSL which was maxxed out at 10Mbps down / 1Mbps up...

The global Starlink satellite coverage has a belt of satellites just south of Alaska.  My Starlink dish tilts and points down south, and I'm sure is picking up satellites from the top edge of this belt.  See below screen-clip.

You can look at this yourself anytime at:  https://satellitemap.space/ and watch the satellites primarily move west->east along this belt, along with a few moving north/south.

Ketchikan (red dot in Southeast Alaska, above) actually has one the base earth stations for Starlink (along with Fairbanks, Nome, and Prudhoe Bay area on the north slope of Alaska).  For any cruises traversing up the inside passage on a Starlink enabled ship, and even for those starting or ending in Seward, I would feel VERY optimistic that Starlink would be functional throughout the entire voyage.  Time will obviously tell this summer how well it actually works!

[twangster]

20 minutes ago, MarvinS said:

I currently live in Alaska (about the same latitude that Seward, AK is at; I live about 80 miles west of there), and just installed Starlink for my residential house last week.  It actually works quite well, and I have about 99.5% uptime.  It's certainly not 100% as I get a few drops with no satellite signal for a few seconds throughout the day, but overall, it is good.  I average about 110Mbps down and 10Mbps up at my house.  Below is the fastest I have seen so far...  

This is a VAST improvement over my former local DSL which was maxxed out at 10Mbps down / 1Mbps up...

The global Starlink satellite coverage has a belt of satellites just south of Alaska.  My Starlink dish tilts and points down south, and I'm sure is picking up satellites from the top edge of this belt.  See below screen-clip.

You can look at this yourself anytime at:  https://satellitemap.space/ and watch the satellites primarily move west->east along this belt, along with a few moving north/south.

Ketchikan (red dot in Southeast Alaska, above) actually has one the base earth stations for Starlink (along with Fairbanks, Nome, and Prudhoe Bay area on the north slope of Alaska).  For any cruises traversing up the inside passage on a Starlink enabled ship, and even for those starting or ending in Seward, I would feel VERY optimistic that Starlink would be functional throughout the entire voyage.  Time will obviously tell this summer how well it actually works!

The Starlink Maritime service is not the same as Starlink residential.  

Your screenshot shows dead areas over water along the coast.  No Starlink cells in a lot of SE coastal Alaska areas: 

Seward for example and Disenchantment Bay (Hubbard Glacier) show no Starlink cells.  Here in the South when there is no green hexagon that means no Starlink coverage.

Admiralty, Baranof and Chicagot Islands and the channels around them look like they have coverage.  

Your link suggests no coverage in Skagway.

So I standby my statement - we are waiting to see how Starlink Maritime service works in Alaska.  

[MarvinS]

1 hour ago, twangster said:

So I standby my statement - we are waiting to see how Starlink Maritime service works in Alaska.  

For what it's worth, I currently live well outside of an identified hex zone.  I got an email directly from Starlink in January (I had been on a wait-list for Alaska) that said that service in my area is now available, and was able to sign up and order it.  I also know this map is NOT directly affiliated with SpaceX/Starlink, so am not sure how current or accurate those hexes are.  I know they are putting up lots of additional satellites on a regular basis, and my service is working well.  Time will tell how the maritime service works...

[MarvinS]

I just went to Starlink's website, put in my coastal Alaska address (near Seward; far outside of the "hexes" of availability), and selected "Maritime" for the type of Starlink service that I wanted, and it came back with "Starlink is immediately available in your area", and is offering multiple Maritime service classes (data volumes of priority access) of Maritime Starlink service.  I use that map to get an idea of satellite coverage, not for reviewing hexes of availability.

Additionally, directly on Starlink's website, they now have this statement:

 

I'm still optimistic that Maritime Starlink will be working for the Alaska cruises.  Time will tell!

[twangster]

17 minutes ago, MarvinS said:

I just went to Starlink's website, put in my coastal Alaska address (near Seward; far outside of the "hexes" of availability), and selected "Maritime" for the type of Starlink service that I wanted, and it came back with "Starlink is immediately available in your area", and is offering multiple Maritime service classes (data volumes of priority access) of Maritime Starlink service.  I use that map to get an idea of satellite coverage, not for reviewing hexes of availability.

I am sure the "hex" regions of availability are NOT accurate.  I'm still optimistic that Maritime Starlink will be working for the Alaska cruises.  Time will tell!

I'm jaded because Musk routinely overstates capabilities and makes promises that turn out not to come true.  That's not always his fault, as we see with the delays of Starship which is what is holding Starlink back from being great. 

Starlink has proven not to be the great salvation of Voom that people had expected and that is the case everywhere Royal sails today.  We all hope that Alaska Voom is better with Starlink but that is what everyone was hoping for in the Caribbean too.  However like you, the previous Voom internet available on Alaska cruises was pretty bad so if it's not totally crap then Starlink may be better in Alaska this year compared to the crappy Alaska Voom from prior years.  It can't get much worse so maybe Starlink can at least be better than that this year.  

It will be interesting to see how your Starlink does when 10,000 new clients show up on a couple ships sharing the same bandwidth as you at home.  At least you'll know when cruise ships are close.  

[MarvinS]

20 minutes ago, twangster said:

It will be interesting to see how your Starlink does when 10,000 new clients show up on a couple ships sharing the same bandwidth as you at home.  At least you'll know when cruise ships are close.  

Yeah, I'll definitely be keeping tabs on how my performance goes this summer...and ANY improvement will beat my 10Mbps down/1Mbps up DSL service I had!

[JBC]

I was on Ovation this past August in Alaska and the internet was terrible on board for most of the trip.  I can't imagine Starlink being worse, although I was on Allure in February and the internet on there wasn't great either, and that is a Starlink equipped ship.  Next up for me is Mariner this coming August to Bermuda, so fingers crossed on the internet.  I am not on it all the time, but I do need it most days for a little bit to check in on work stuff.   

[Psycho and Barb]

On our last Alaska cruise in June 22 on the Radiance...We sometimes had better internet service on the inside passage by using our cell service then the ships Wi-Fi.  A lot of the time the ships Wi-Fi was nonexistence.  We would turn off airplane mode and most of the time would pick up a land cell tower...If we got the cell@sea we would quickly go back to airplane mode.

[whitsmom]

In July 2018, we cruise (Radiance) up the Northern Passage.  We have AT&T and we had cell reception almost the entire way as you could see land on both sides in the distance.  When we got out of range, we would put our phones in Airplane Mode.  As a matter of fact, we had better cell reception there than we had at our house!