Seeking An Understanding About the True Speed and Consistent Connection of the Starlink Internet Package

[RayV]

I have family members traveling with me on the Wonder of the Seas in November and we are wondering about the performance of the Voom Internet package and whether two of our group can rely on this for consistent WFO connectivity (I know it would involve logging into secure networks as well as Zoom/Teams calls). On 2 of the "at sea" days, these 2 need to work for half the day. Does anyone have experience (good or bad) that I can share with them?

[smokeybandit]

Even with Starlink, there are so many things that can affect your connection performance at sea that you'll have as many good experience reports as bad.

[Ryan79]

I don’t know that I would use the words “rely” and “consistent” when describing the connectivity. Some people report no issues and others have intermit issues. For the most part, it’s not that bad from my experience but on sea days the traffic will be significantly increased by other cruisers and that may have a decent impact on their connectivity experience. 

[JBC]

Starlink for me so far on a couple of cruises hasn't been great.  Very spotty in both my room and on other areas of the ship.  One day on the pool deck I could stream music from my phone fine, another day nothing.  Same seating areas.  Same with my room, sometimes worked fine, other times it was unusable.  There are lots of threads about this on here, various tips and what not.  I think the main factors are the location of the ship, and then your location on the ship.  Also the connectivity settings on your devices.  If it is really necessary to the point where if I am not on this teams call I will lose my job, then I would be very, very hesitant to count on it.  Everyone's mileage will vary though.

@twangster I believe has had some helpful posts on here about this topic.  

[wordell1]

The bottom line is that it's not reliable for high speed business use.

[RockerDom31]

See below for the Speedtest for Liberty of the Seas, at sea, on the way back to Cape Liberty on July 8th, 6AMish.

[deButler]

I Worked off and on during 2 Trans-Atlantic crossings (Symphony & Explorer) this year and had very satisfactory service to use all of my applications needed. Mostly I chose to work out of the Connisoure Cub or library, etc. but  overall was satisfied. If I was having slowness at any point I just moved to another location. Like others have mentioned depending on location of your room it can get spotty in there. My results from some of my tests on second trip on Explorer.

 

 

[OCSC Mike]

7 minutes ago, deButler said:

depending on location of your room it can get spotty in there

Unless you're on a ship like Wonder that has a WAP in every cabin.

[deButler]

9 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

Unless you're on a ship like Wonder that has a WAP in every cabin.

Get to test it out in October. That would be awesome. 

[OCSC Mike]

24 minutes ago, deButler said:

Get to test it out in October. That would be awesome. 

It worked very well last month. No issues streaming video from various apps. I didn't use it for anything more intensive than that but the difference between having the WAP and the spotty service in cabins on other ships was definitely noticeable.

[MarvinS]

1 hour ago, OCSC Mike said:

Unless you're on a ship like Wonder that has a WAP in every cabin.

I was just on Wonder a couple of weeks ago (Western loop sailing), and had good connectivity while in the room through the cruise (having the WAP in the cabin worked wonderfully), and every time I checked speeds (randomly throughout the cruise) it was fairly consistent at about 4MB down / 2MB up.  Saw a few tests faster and a few slower, but on average, got fairly consistent results.  I was able to VPN (Wireguard VPN) back into my office to deal with a couple of issues, and had zero problems connecting.  I didn't have a need to participate in any Teams meetings (I was on vacation!), so can't speak to that performance or experience at all.  I only had a one-device plan for my laptop, so did NOT roam around the ship testing performance and connectivity, but just left the laptop in the room and had fairly reliable and consistent performance there.

[Traveling Mike]

Everyone has an opinion.  All I have is experience.  I have been on 3 ships with StarLink and have worked remoting into secure servers in California.  I have also been on multiple Microsoft Teams and Zoom meetings.  The only issues I have had is with one of my rooms I was too far from the wireless router and had to keep my cabin door open to get a strong signal.  My Thanksgiving Cruise out of Los Angeles I sat on my Balcony and took 6 different Team Meetings without any issues.  

I am not saying it was the best in the world, but it was good enough for a computer programmer to do his work.

[OCSC Mike]

8 hours ago, Traveling Mike said:

The only issues I have had is with one of my rooms I was too far from the wireless router and had to keep my cabin door open to get a strong signal.

That's why the WAP in every cabin on Wonder is so beneficial. I don't work from sea but I've definitely propped my door open to get a better signal before on other ships.

[twangster]

Starlink is vastly different technology compared to the previous satellite technology.  As a company Starlink is very young and their satellite constellation is even younger.  It is only a few years old.  The first beta users connected in 2020.  The thing about Starlink and the satellite constellation is that it's only about 15% built.  

Starlink is so new that user reports are valid the day they are posted but not much long after that those users reports are old and dated information that doesn't apply anymore.    

I mean no disrespect to anyone who posts about their experience with Starlink but their experience means very little a month later.  

Unlike previous satellite technology used on ships for internet, Starlink uses local resources to connect a ship to the internet.  When a ship is sailing along the coast of the US Starlink uses ground stations close to the ship in the US.  When the ship moves away from the US and is sailing along the coast of another country, Starlink uses gateway cities in that other country to connect the ship to the internet.  A ship sailing an itinerary may use dozens of different gateways cities as it sails, in many different countries.   This is wildly different than previous technology.  It  also varies one itinerary to the next. 

Someone can have a great Starlink experience one week on one itinerary and another person on the same ship a week later on a different itinerary could have a terrible Starlink experience.  The average person doesn't think of all the tech and geography involved, it just works great or it sucks, for that person, in that moment in time.  

This constantly changing gateway city can yield constantly changing results.  Someone watching Netflix probably won't care.  It just works.  Someone trying to connect to corporate resources to work remotely will face different challenges.  Federal employees, defense contractors and similar high security environments typically block foreign access.  These environments typically work from anywhere in the US but the moment you are in another country you may find yourself cutoff and denied access.  

New gateway cities are added over time.  More satellites launch every month.  There are also different types of Starlink satellites, the newer ones work different than the older ones.  So many factors in play for newborn satellite constellations.  

How will it work for you and your family members?  It all depends.  

[baltodave]

58 minutes ago, twangster said:

Starlink is vastly different technology compared to the previous satellite technology.  As a company Starlink is very young and their satellite constellation is even younger.  It is only a few years old.  The first beta users connected in 2020.  The thing about Starlink and the satellite constellation is that it's only about 15% built.  

Starlink is so new that user reports are valid the day they are posted but not much long after that those users reports are old and dated information that doesn't apply anymore.    

I mean no disrespect to anyone who posts about their experience with Starlink but their experience means very little a month later.  

Unlike previous satellite technology used on ships for internet, Starlink uses local resources to connect a ship to the internet.  When a ship is sailing along the coast of the US Starlink uses ground stations close to the ship in the US.  When the ship moves away from the US and is sailing along the coast of another country, Starlink uses gateway cities in that other country to connect the ship to the internet.  A ship sailing an itinerary may use dozens of different gateways cities as it sails, in many different countries.   This is wildly different than previous technology.  It  also varies one itinerary to the next. 

Someone can have a great Starlink experience one week on one itinerary and another person on the same ship a week later on a different itinerary could have a terrible Starlink experience.  The average person doesn't think of all the tech and geography involved, it just works great or it sucks, for that person, in that moment in time.  

This constantly changing gateway city can yield constantly changing results.  Someone watching Netflix probably won't care.  It just works.  Someone trying to connect to corporate resources to work remotely will face different challenges.  Federal employees, defense contractors and similar high security environments typically block foreign access.  These environments typically work from anywhere in the US but the moment you are in another country you may find yourself cutoff and denied access.  

New gateway cities are added over time.  More satellites launch every month.  There are also different types of Starlink satellites, the newer ones work different than the older ones.  So many factors in play for newborn satellite constellations.  

How will it work for you and your family members?  It all depends.  

Great post @twangster !  I've also heard that the further north you go (e.g. Alaskan cruises) , the weaker the signal.  @twangster: care to comment?

[dwp10mm]

40 minutes ago, baltodave said:

Great post @twangster !  I've also heard that the further north you go (e.g. Alaskan cruises) , the weaker the signal.  @twangster: care to comment?

I was on Quantum to Alaska two weeks ago.  I heard this as well.  While I didn't try to do any work meetings, the connection was very reliable.  So much so that I stopped testing after the first 2 days.  1st test was 9.2down/2.03 up.  2nd test a day later was 9.4down/2.95 up.  I never once had a problem checking email, sending pics/video, etc.  This was a blessing compared to the pitiful performance I had on Harmony in February.  Upload was almost unusable.  Funny thing is I remember having poor internet on Harmony even before Starlink was the solution.  So it makes me wonder if that just has something to do with their onboard network.

Likes others have said, it is a gamble.  You never know what you will truly get.

[twangster]

3 hours ago, baltodave said:

Great post @twangster !  I've also heard that the further north you go (e.g. Alaskan cruises) , the weaker the signal.  @twangster: care to comment?

The problem in Alaska is the sparse population means there is less opportunity for Starlink to deploy gateway cities in Alaska.  Instead Starlink relays the signals between satellites to connect Alaska (and ships while they are near Alaska) to gateway cities that are more Southerly.  

The intention has been for Starlink to deploy the 2nd generation of satellites to better perform this satellite to satellite relay function.  The v2 Starlink satellites when they launch will greatly assist with this and other advanced communication capability.  The problem is that the v2 satellites are too big to fit on the Falcon 9 rockets that have been launching the v1 satellites all this time.  Instead, the new Starship rocket is required to send v2 satellites into space. 

Starship is a whole other topic of conversation.  It was supposed to be flying by now but it isn't.  As a result there are no v2 satellite in space yet.  

Given the delays with Starship, Starlink created a v2-mini version of a 2nd generation satellite that could fly on the Falcon 9.  As the name suggests the mini version isn't as feature rich compared to the full v2 satellites but it has allowed Starlink to advance some connectivity and features.  

Once Starship is flying in production the Starlink constellations will improve dramatically.   Until then there will inconsistencies with Starlink service.

[smokeybandit]

Never trust something called Starship. It'll just get bad rock songs stuck in your head.

[CruisingNewb]

1 minute ago, smokeybandit said:

Never trust something called Starship. It'll just get bad rock songs stuck in your head.

Oh crap...you opened a can of worms that you cannot close now.  

Nothing's gonna stop [you] now....

[twangster]

2 hours ago, dwp10mm said:

This was a blessing compared to the pitiful performance I had on Harmony in February.  Upload was almost unusable.  Funny thing is I remember having poor internet on Harmony even before Starlink was the solution.  So it makes me wonder if that just has something to do with their onboard network.

Likes others have said, it is a gamble.  You never know what you will truly get.

O3b is the satellite service provider that Starlink replaced.

O3b is faster and in some ways better than Starlink.  It's proven technology that is more mature.  However it costs a lot more.  A lot more.  Post pandemic Royal chose not to up their commitment levels for throughput with O3b.  During the shutdown with only a hundred crew on board they cut the ship throughput significantly to save money.  Once cruising restarted they did not restore the throughput back to pre-pandemic levels to save money.  

The issue that made your Harmony cruise have dreadful Voom isn't the satellite provider technology, but the price they charge, which caused Royal to scale back their commitment levels.  Too many people all trying to use too little bandwidth.  It could have been fixed but at a significant cost during a time when Royal was still in survival mode.  

Along comes Starlink offering service at a bargain basement price while they were still building up their capability.  At first Starlink on ships sucked because Starlink couldn't deliver on it projected service.  This was because of delays getting their 2nd generation satellites in space.  

If you have ever heard the saying out of the frying pan and into the fire, that is what occurred with Voom.

Essentially Royal ships went from the frying pan (O3b at low throughput levels) into the fire (Starlink Maritime while the service was new and not ready for prime time). 

Now that Starlink has advanced the Maritime service is a lot better and it's only going to continue getting better and better.  In the near term though there will be inconsistencies with Starlink service.  

[baltodave]

15 minutes ago, twangster said:

The problem in Alaska is the sparse population means there is less opportunity for Starlink to deploy gateway cities in Alaska.  Instead Starlink relays the signals between satellites to connect Alaska (and ships while they are near Alaska) to gateway cities that are more Southerly.  

The intention has been for Starlink to deploy the 2nd generation of satellites to better perform this satellite to satellite relay function.  The v2 Starlink satellites when they launch will greatly assist with this and other advanced communication capability.  The problem is that the v2 satellites are too big to fit on the Falcon 9 rockets that have been launching the v1 satellites all this time.  Instead, the new Starship rocket is required to send v2 satellites into space. 

Starship is a whole other topic of conversation.  It was supposed to be flying by now but it isn't.  As a result there are no v2 satellite in space yet.  

Given the delays with Starship, Starlink created a v2-mini version of a 2nd generation satellite that could fly on the Falcon 9.  As the name suggests the mini version isn't as feature rich compared to the full v2 satellites but it has allowed Starlink to advance some connectivity and features.  

Once Starship is flying in production the Starlink constellations will improve dramatically.   Until then there will inconsistencies with Starlink service.

@twangster  I learn so much reading your posts!  Thanks!  and hopefully, I'll get a chance to meet you in Panama in March.