Wi-Fi on Carnival Magic

I have pre-purchased the Social Wi-Fi plan so I am able to keep in touch with the pet sitter in case of an emergency. I've heard mixed reviews on the internet plans, some say excellent and others say not so much. I am only interested in using it for the Facebook Messenger. We will also be docked in Belize, Costa Maya, Cozumel, and Roatan if anyone has Wi-Fi experience at these ports. Should I keep the plan or not bother with it?

most major carriers have no fees for Mexico, talk, text and data. All of the islands have wifi, some not very fast but always available.

The ship's WiFi is crap. Only ship I've heard has decent service is the Horizon.

OP you should be able to find off peak times when you can get a lot better service than during peak times. Another suggestion is to try the wired comps in the internet cafe if wifi seems too sluggish. We do that sometimes and seem to get better performance.

We were on board during the Easter holiday weekend. The ship was SOLD OUT. We had also purchased the social package on land so that we'd be able to contact our house-sitter while we were out of the country. I think other folks had the same idea because WiFi was only sufficient during the trip if you used it to DM people through the social media functions. I like letting family at home know where we were each day and tried to upload photos or video daily. Photos were okay on Instagram, if you only loaded one at a time. If you tried the multi-photos or video, that's where the real trouble was at...it would literally take hours for any multiple photo or video post. I had better luck early in the morning (say 7AM or earlier), but service was still a bit shoddy. I would like to write it off as it was a full capacity ship and a lot of people probably had the same idea I had. Our friends had purchased the premium internet WiFi because one is working on an advanced degree and had class during our trip, and they did not fare any better...they said they'd have preferred to disconnect completely instead.

We did try to use the Internet Cafe a couple of times, but couldn't figure out the instructions to log-on to access different sites. So we gave up and just waited for Florida landfall.

Hope you fare better than we did.

WiFi at the ports would depend on where you end up. Paradise Beach in Cozumel was spotty...likely because there were at least 2 other ships in port with us. We didn't have a chance to try it in Belize because we were tied up with an all day excursion. Roatan was only accessible from the Little French Key gift shop. Blue Kay had it, but you had to be in the restaurant/bar area to access it.

OP you should be able to find off peak times when you can get a lot better service than during peak times. Another suggestion is to try the wired comps in the internet cafe if wifi seems too sluggish. We do that sometimes and seem to get better performance.

not really, you can 5 bars of wifi and no internet, which is the case with Carnival. I could barely run "whatsmyspeed", even at off times the most I got was 2Mb, most of the time it's less than 1Mb

not really, you can 5 bars of wifi and no internet, which is the case with Carnival. I could barely run "whatsmyspeed", even at off times the most I got was 2Mb, most of the time it's less than 1Mb

I meant for the cable hookup. When you use wifi you go through a wireless access point which may not be able to handle huge traffic flow very well. You can get good signal all day but if the access point is screaming busy then performance may be really slow.

it's the modem, not the wifi, when you plug in an ethernet it does not help speed, unless the wifi is poor, it's still the same speed modem.

An ethernet cable connection doesn't use the modem, it uses an ethernet card.

and what brings you internet? Wall plug, to modem, ethernet from modem to computer. Someone is supplying their internet, not very well I may add.

So by 'modem' you mean like the cable modem that connects my home network to my internet provider? I was talking about the wifi modem inside my laptop that connects to the wifi router 'access point' that plugs into the cable modem that goes to my isp. Ship's internet cafe computers don't use the wifi, they connect to the ship network with a cable. Like on my fire tv I can use either wifi or a cable, I use a cable because it can be more dependable and faster.

... If you tried the multi-photos or video, that's where the real trouble was at...it would literally take hours for any multiple photo or video post. ...

Photos (today's variety) and videos are usually huge files. If you're using your phone for these, try reducing the photo and video size in your camera's settings. I have my settings lowered and even then my pics usually come out at 4-5Mb... again, huge file sizes. A video can easily be 10 or 100 times that size. When you try to upload humongous files over a very crowded wireless infrastructure, it can take a very long time. Same with sending (or receiving/downloading) emails with photo or video attachments.

and what brings you internet? Wall plug, to modem, ethernet from modem to computer. Someone is supplying their internet, not very well I may add.

Terminology. "Is that Greek you're speaking or Latin?" A WiFi "modem" is a radio. A cable modem is typically a wired device, although it might also be equipped with a wireless radio modem for WiFi comm to a WISP (Wireless ISP).

Cell phones also have "radios", e.g. cellular and data wireless modems. A cell phone's "wifi" uses the same protocol as a computer's wifi.

Hub apps use the same wireless network path that Internet connections use. (I presume. If anybody can correct or improve on this info, please feel free.)

From https://help.carnival.com/app/answers/list/kw/luggage%20restrictions/search/1 (a search-summary page):

Carnival's Wi-Fi Service and HUB App

To keep you connected while at sea, every one of our ships provides satellite Internet access at our Internet Cafés and through the bow-to-stern ship-wide Wi-Fi network.

Notice the "and" there: "Internet Cafes" and "Wi-Fi network". Two separate and distinct connection streams. The two eventually merge at a common routing point, but on our end, one component might be working fine while the other one is bogged down. Wireless has more ways of getting bogged down than wired. By nature, wireless has to do a lot, plus the radio signal has to be strong enough and not suffering too much interference from other wireless/radio signals that are always present.

In this simplified illustration, the Wireless AP is an added device in the stream. Another network hop. It adds complexity, competition and complications to network (and Internet) data flow.

I really don't think you understand how it all works. My home is cable wired to a modem. If I direct wire an ethernet wire to my desktop, I get a little square icon on the bottom right of my screen. This means you have a wired connection. I do a speedtest and record 60 Mb. Next I log into my laptop through a wireless router hooked up yo my modem. Note, some modems have built in wifi, so you do not need an additional wifi router. Now, on my laptop I have a wif icon, lo on to my laptop browser, do a speedtest and still have 60 Mb. Of course, many people on the same network at the same time will diminish speed

I really don't think you understand how it all works. My home is cable wired to a modem. If I direct wire an ethernet wire to my desktop, I get a little square icon on the bottom right of my screen. This means you have a wired connection. I do a speedtest and record 60 Mb. Next I log into my laptop through a wireless router hooked up yo my modem. Note, some modems have built in wifi, so you do not need an additional wifi router. Now, on my laptop I have a wif icon, lo on to my laptop browser, do a speedtest and still have 60 Mb. Of course, many people on the same network at the same time will diminish speed

30-year IT pro, network tech, enterprise IT designer/manager for 10+ years.

I can get the same "test" throughput on my home wired and wireless devices. But the part I bolded is very much the key. At home I might have 3 or 4 devices demanding wireless time. A typical Wireless AP box is built to handle as many as 15-25 connections (per the spec). I don't know how many APs Magic or any Carnival ship might deploy (think about average # of clients per box), but it's probably not enough. But then you have competition for throughput right on down the line. Or "up" the line. The wired devices those Wireless APs feed into are gonna get hammered at some point, and probably seriously hammered on a frequent basis.

3-4-5k passengers and crew using Internet; social networking, photo-video uploads/downloads, maybe some Youtube watching -- and TV streaming on the high-end packages? That's a whole lot to throw at a ship's wireless and wired network architecture and one or maybe two satellite links. Weather's bad? Rocky sea? Even the mega-speed satellite pipes are gonna suffer.

30-year IT pro, network tech, enterprise IT designer/manager for 10+ years.

 

I can get the same "test" throughput on my home wired and wireless devices. But the part I bolded is very much the key. At home I might have 3 or 4 devices demanding wireless time. A typical Wireless AP box is built to handle as many as 15-25 connections (per the spec). I don't know how many APs Magic or any Carnival ship might deploy (think about average # of clients per box), but it's probably not enough. But then you have competition for throughput right on down the line. Or "up" the line. The wired devices those Wireless APs feed into are gonna get hammered at some point, and probably seriously hammered on a frequent basis.

 

3-4-5k passengers and crew using Internet; social networking, photo-video uploads/downloads, maybe some Youtube watching -- and TV streaming on the high-end packages? That's a whole lot to throw at a ship's wireless and wired network architecture and one or maybe two satellite links. Weather's bad? Rocky sea? Even the mega-speed satellite pipes are gonna suffer.

All very good info from an IT guy and I agree. However, there is no you tube, no streaming, even on "high end" packages. You can barely load the pictures on FB. As I said I never could register more than 1 Mb on whatsmyspeed even on the high end package.