Internet speed test

Connections seem the speediest they have been since boarding in Istanbul. I estimate 80% of passengers have disembarked in Barcelona this morning based on luggage outside cabins last night.

Speedtest.net reports 2.0 Mbps down and 0.23 Mbps up using a nearby server in Venice (network thinks it is in Venice). When I hand chose a nearby telecom server in Barcelona, I got about the same speed.

These were probably optimal conditions with few passengers onboard and using the whatever in-port connection technology Viking installed. I'll try again later tonight when all the new passengers are on the ship. I'll also head down now to the four Viking desktop terminals available for customer use to test those.

Also Viking has not implemented any throttling or rationing system on internet resources yet. Still wide open and cost free.

Just before 11am so no new passengers on ship. Speed at the Viking provided desktop machines was 8.43 Mbps down and 1.06 up.

Might give a big clue as to why Viking (and other cruise lines) consider limiting free internet access! I don't think giving 930 passengers unlimited internet access, especially while at sea, is workable. Certainly it isn't on a trans-Atlantic ship with 3,000 passengers. My friends on a big cruise ship want to blog and insert multiple pictures. They have been very frustrated. They have another day until they touch land (Azores) so I'm guessing there will be no pictures until 24 hours from now! It's always the same on cruise ships...I think more people complain about the internet than anything else. Me, I just plan to take a small laptop and use WiFi in port to do an occasional message and picture to a few friends at home! Surely I can live without internet access for 2 weeks!

Internet on Viking Star is one of the brightest positives of the ship. Relatively fast for a cruise ship. Affected with occasional glitches (more or less to be expected on the inaugural voyage . . . for instance, LadyVol1 can't get her iPhone or iPad to connect right now---techie talk ahead: the DHCP server does not appear to be offering up IP addresses very effectively at the moment, from what I can see--I certainly don't have a Sniffer or anything with me to properly diagnose the network issue, but that's what it looks like from here). I will possibly become very unhappy when my laptop's DHCP lease expires, whenever that happens, unless the problem is resolved.

Internet seems passably fast and responsive most of the time, but if you're planning to upload a lot of 1M photos to your web site you're going to be unhappy and you'll probably make a lot of your shipmates unhappy too. That's the reality of satellite-connected shipboard Internet connectivity.

Personally, I don't even think about uploading photos from the ship, but that's just me. Your mileage may vary.

Internet seems passably fast and responsive most of the time, but if you're planning to upload a lot of 1M photos to your web site you're going to be unhappy and you'll probably make a lot of your shipmates unhappy too. That's the reality of satellite-connected shipboard Internet connectivity.

 

Personally, I don't even think about uploading photos from the ship, but that's just me. Your mileage may vary.

I have been known to upload photos from a cruise ship, but first I mush them down to a really low resolution! Of course, that usually requires some kind of photo editing software, which many people may not have, or Viking may not provide.

Anyway, good to hear things are up to snuff!

Well - I must be jinxed or something, but I'm not a big fan of the WiFi onboard the Star. I'll be right in the middle of posting to CC and suddenly it disconnects me. That's if I can get on in the first place. For example, since I've gotten back after our tour today, I've been unable to connect, and keep getting "Failed IP Address" and "connection too slow - AP failed" messages. Finally went downstairs to the Viking machines and got on as soon as someone else got up. This may be what Filbert has just described in laymans terms.

Some evening I cannot get on at all, and I find WiFi is actually WORSE while we are in ports. I have less trouble when we're at sea. I'm finding the WiFi about the same as other cruise ships I've been on and about the same as Viking River Cruises. :(

Well - I must be jinxed or something, but I'm not a big fan of the WiFi onboard the Star. I'll be right in the middle of posting to CC and suddenly it disconnects me. That's if I can get on in the first place. For example, since I've gotten back after our tour today, I've been unable to connect, and keep getting "Failed IP Address" and "connection too slow - AP failed" messages. Finally went downstairs to the Viking machines and got on as soon as someone else got up. This may be what Filbert has just described in laymans terms.

 

Some evening I cannot get on at all, and I find WiFi is actually WORSE while we are in ports. I have less trouble when we're at sea. I'm finding the WiFi about the same as other cruise ships I've been on and about the same as Viking River Cruises. :(

It does seem to me like the ship's Internet is having quite a few more problems the past few days (since Barcelona?) than it previously had coming out of Istanbul.

I've been unable to get an IP Address for more than a few seconds, unless I go down and use the Viking computers. We have two Samsung Android phones and an Apple computer. All we are trying to do is send a few e-mails and respond and post to CC. Does anyone have any idea how we can get on with any consistency? I'm sitting at a Viking computer with my phone sitting beside me and it just keeps saying "failed to get IP Address". What are we doing wrong? It's been like this for the last 3 days.

I've been unable to get an IP Address for more than a few seconds, unless I go down and use the Viking computers.

Since we left Barcelona, I've had trouble getting WiFi on my iPhone and iPad so what I now have to do is turn WiFi off each time. Before I do that, though, I click on "Forget this network". Then I turn WiFi off. When I am ready to use WiFi again, I turn it back on and then select "Viking Cruises". If this doesn't work, I do a hard shut down for at least five minutes. Then I turn on my device and turn on WiFi and select "Viking Cruises" again. I found that if I don't have my device OFF for at least five minutes, it doesn't connect when I turn on WiFi and then select "Viking Cruises". For some reason, I haven't had any trouble with my MacBook Air, but that's probably because I shut it off when I'm done and it's not running 24x7 like my iPhone and iPad. Good luck.

Janet

I almost hate to say anything, but the speeds late this afternoon in Cadiz are OK. Maybe they reversed out the 'improvements' they made in Barcelona...

No major entertainment happening just yet so perhaps quite a few users connected.

0.30 Mbps down and 0.26 Mpbs up.

At least I can get an IP address more or less ever since Cadiz. Slow, but,at least we can get on. So whatever was clogging that has seemed to clear. At least for now.

Tied up in Bergen. Sitting in Explorer's Lounge where results are 0.41 Mbps down and 0.06 Mbps up. Don't know what is going on as casual conversation with some members of press covering christening revealed they are experiencing great internet coverage.

CrusinSubMan came by and mentioned he got his material uploaded by going ashore to Starbucks.

I see there are a lot of technical experts here:-)

All cruise lines use more or less the same satellites for their Internet connection. That is the biggest constraint on the system. A couple of weeks ago a new satellite was launched by the Norwegian Telenor and this is specifically designed for communication. It is in orbit now and are being prepared for communication. Then there will be higher speeds delivered to ships specially in Europe.

The other issue is the WiFi. You are in a steel cage and it is difficult to send signals throughout the ship. That is due to the physics of it, - not the Cruise line. So you need time to be able to optimize and move some wifi connections.

A third issue is of course your iPhone, iPad, etc. Not all are set up correctly. Not all of them are actually good at WiFi. And when many have a couple of mobiles and a couple of iPads and laptop hooked up to the net then you get into trouble. 450 cabins. 4 units per room. Then you suddenly have 1800 connections needed! Then the crew have a few connections both for work and time off. So maybe you easily have 3 000 connections to handle with a limited bandwidth on the satelitte.

On land many have huge bandwidths to their homes. But still a lot only have 1.5 Mb to download and 0.25 Mb to send.

Have a realistic approach to this. What you guys want is 5mb each multiplied with 3000 users in a max case. Even your home WiFi a miles away of handling this:-)

A lot of emails and blogs can be updated offline on your units. Why not do that and stop for a coffee at McDonalds or Starbucks and upload all you want then you are there. And download what you want at the same time.

I see there are a lot of technical experts here:-)

All cruise lines use more or less the same satellites for their Internet connection. That is the biggest constraint on the system. A couple of weeks ago a new satellite was launched by the Norwegian Telenor and this is specifically designed for communication. It is in orbit now and are being prepared for communication. Then there will be higher speeds delivered to ships specially in Europe.

The other issue is the WiFi. You are in a steel cage and it is difficult to send signals throughout the ship. That is due to the physics of it, - not the Cruise line. So you need time to be able to optimize and move some wifi connections.

A third issue is of course your iPhone, iPad, etc. Not all are set up correctly. Not all of them are actually good at WiFi. And when many have a couple of mobiles and a couple of iPads and laptop hooked up to the net then you get into trouble. 450 cabins. 4 units per room. Then you suddenly have 1800 connections needed! Then the crew have a few connections both for work and time off. So maybe you easily have 3 000 connections to handle with a limited bandwidth on the satelitte.

On land many have huge bandwidths to their homes. But still a lot only have 1.5 Mb to download and 0.25 Mb to send.

Have a realistic approach to this. What you guys want is 5mb each multiplied with 3000 users in a max case. Even your home WiFi a miles away of handling this:-)

A lot of emails and blogs can be updated offline on your units. Why not do that and stop for a coffee at McDonalds or Starbucks and upload all you want then you are there. And download what you want at the same time.

I haven't read any posts on here for many days, as they were getting too negative for my taste. However, I am now (selectively) catching up and saw your post. Thank you very much. Nowadays there are so many smartphones and tablets on board cruise ships, many turned on with WiFi enabled, and so it's a wonder that anyone is able to post at all. I wish more cruisers, current as well as future, would read your post, make sure they understand how to use their devices, and help lessen the problems that many cruisers experience while trying to access internet while at sea. Internet complaints are many on cruise lines (and of course, not just Viking) and I wish the cruise lines would also do a little educating of people who now have devices on board (especially multiple ones!) I also hope people have some basic knowledge of how to compress photos, scans, etc. that they wish to send in emails and in posts on Cruise Critic and other online sites. Ideally, this should be done offline and then sent online, as you suggest.

Most ports have WiFi, so sitting around the port before getting back on the ship can be a good way to find WiFi. You can also usually find WiFi spots near the ship by following the lucky crew members who get some time off and are very often headed to their favorite WiFi spot. Some people will say that they shouldn't have to get off the ship to find WiFi, but with smartphones and tablets, it is now easy to do that without having to carry a lot of stuff and walk very far.

Anyway, thanks much for the information, especially the news about the new communications satellite!

Hmmm, so we are going to start sniping on this thread as well. In that vein, I'd say some recent posters must have done not so well on the reading for comprehension portion of the SAT.

I don't believe anyone has claimed an absolute position on what internet speed Star should be offering. My measurements since the cruise began were intended to inform future passengers as to what they might expect. From Istanbul to Gibraltar, the general feeling onboard was Viking had done well with regard to Internet access. That was with the caveat that the system has been left wide open and no tiering of service has been presented to guests to opt into.

As a layman with some experience in drawing quantitative inferences, it seemed reasonable to me that using the same speed test suite on the same computer from a fixed spot on the ship which, unless informed otherwise, I believe offered a fixed service offering made repeated measurements meaningful. I mentioned time of day and ship's location as variables that might affect the speeds I reported. When service degraded so badly, I switched to Viking's own public computers to confirm my computer was not generating misleading results. That was not the case as same similar test results came out

Something happened since Gibraltar that I thought future passengers (as in early June not 2016) should be aware of. If nothing is done to restore service levels, I would not drag a load of electronics to Europe unless you are willing to go ashore for connectivity.

Last night, when Torstein Hagan was challenged at his mention of industry leading internet service levels, senior managers confirmed service is degraded. Torstein admitted he had never been informed until that moment that there was a problem, which led to a few audience grumblings (see communication issues addressed elsewhere on CC).

In summary, yes providing quality internet access at sea is a tough nut to crack. We early cruisers testified that Viking had done a remarkable job in setting up pretty good access thoughout the ship in April 2015 and not in some future date pending a new satellite. They were doing it in April and early May. But connection capabilities have nearly disappeared and passengers had no reason why.

To add confusion to the matter, some members of the press started coming on the ship and were casually mentioning to passengers that they were able to access extremely fast connections enabling the upload of dozens of photos at a time. However, others, such as an internet cruising maven I talked to, had to back track on plans to post from the ship when they themselves experienced problems.

No intention to snipe you, sorry if you felt I was doing that. What you are measuring is great, and you also refer to servers in Venice and Barcelona. That's even better because I assume that Viking does not use local servers in the ports you visit. So you are back to the Satellite communication. I have explained some of the issues earlier. However I personally do not understand why cruise ships in general is not connected to the internet via the local installations in the various ports. Even in big cities and in remote small ports this is the same problems. Why cannot the various ports offer a high speed relay to the ship that can be hooked up to the ships system and sometimes you will have unbelievable speeds. There are standards for these systems and no big deal actually. One can understand the limitations with satellite systems as the satellite has to be in focus with the ships antenna systems. A bit of sea and that is difficult some times. But when you are in port you have high speed 50 meters from the gangway some times. Why not use this??

Since i mentioned the new Satellite for increased capacity then you can see it here http://www.telenorsat.com/thor7/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/THOR-7-satellite-overview-and-technical-specification.pdf

Because Viking's WiFi is totally open at the moment, the ability to get on line in port is actually worse than at sea. In port non-passengers and any passer-by can then get on Viking's free wifi. In my opinion, they should give us user IDs to at least restrict usage to passengers and crew. And they shouldn't be giving preferred access to press and other non-paying VIPs, but that's my own frustration speaking. Note: During the "special off-site VIP" dinner when the Press and VIPs went ashore I was able to upload 2 pics in two different e-mails and clear out my inbox - amazing how that happened...

Viking's executive management keeps touting how technically advanced this ship is. Well, there is no longer a printer next to the four onboard "passenger access" computers. (This printer seemed to work for the first several days of the maiden voyage and then it needed a new cartridge but there were no more cartridges per the Explorers' Desk personnel.) If a passenger needs to print something you are given a memory stick. Then the Explorers' Desk person sticks it in his/her laptop and prints what is needed. Talk about NO security. I can only hope that the memory stick I used didn't have a virus on it from the other guests. And, yes, the memory stick already contained files (one was titled boardingpass.pdf) and was not a formatted (clean) memory stick.

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Something happened since Gibraltar that I thought future passengers (as in early June not 2016) should be aware of. If nothing is done to restore service levels, I would not drag a load of electronics to Europe unless you are willing to go ashore for connectivity.

 

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Yes, I have been lugging laptops into port the last few ports so I can work quickly and then lugging them back the ship. Overall that has been much better than trying to use the ship's WIFI.

Something changed in Gibralter, and so far, they have not been able to fix it. In talking with one exec who was pretty knowledgable, he said they think it is the satellite service company they are contracted with but they are having a very hard time getting a straight story from that company.

I also do not think the problem is just speed, but something else because certain email servers are not able to be connected to and some are. Between my wife and I we have four different email servers that we use Outlook to connect to. By London, we could not get any of them to work. Now, all but one is working. I have been playing with the configuration on that one but still cannot get it work.

Yesterday, when we got into Oslo, I trotted off to a bar with the laptop that has that account and got it done in a few minutes. Annoying but necessary for us. My main one also goes through a VPN and the VPN is now able to connect again but it drops about every 10 minutes. So I mostly do it in bursts now, (write up emails and then link up for a send/receive).

So things have gotten better since their low point, but are not back to what they were pre-Gibralter. And now, for most guests, they are back to being satisfactory. But not for me. But I think I am in the minority now.

Download 1.52 Mbps and 0.91 up.

Will provide other measurements to confirm if a "fix" is in place.

On more practical terms, for the first time in eleven days I was able to upload Chef's Table menus to a different CC thread. Slow web access has been possible the entire time for reading news, emails, checking web sites, etc.

Mentions about at sea or being tied up in port are context in case service is degraded while underway.

Speedtest.net is detecting the server as being in Venice. It picks a local server pair based on ping near Venice. Many web pages are being delivered in Italian.

Why not just plan on going ashore? When the ship advertised free internet at sea that became part of the plan. The Barcelona-Bergen leg had five sea days so there was no other option. Lastly, I tend to go ashore and stay ashore. I want a minimum of items on me to be concerned about (losing, theft, bulkiness) and prefer not to carry electronics all day. I don't even take a cell phone ashore.

This may be total coincidence, but have you noticed today there are no Press Corps, and we're missing the waves of "visitors", special guests, assorted Viking brass and other VIPs. I know I'm cynical, but I have to believe there's a relationship here with Internet availability! And the answer has nothing to do with a technical fix or another supposed change in ISPs. ;)

That makes sense to me. My wireless bogs down when my family descends en masse for holidays.

...Yesterday afternoon in Warnemunde we were behind a substantial number of travel agents/press types coming aboard with tons of luggage. Later in the evening there were roaming groups being escorted with cocktails in their hands so I think I have them pegged correctly.

Today, in the Tri-City area of Gdansk, internet speeds are not what they were recently with 0.71 Mbps down and 0.46 up at 2pm just as tours were heading out. At 8:30pm 0.71 down and 0.07!!!!! with most everyone aboard. There are some enjoying the bright lights of downtown Gydnia. Now at 11:20PM with all aboard due in ten minutes it is 0.24 down and 0.17 up. I think paying passengers are being throttled to open up bandwidth for others.

We're off the ship and checked into the Hilton Slussen overlooking the old town of Stockholm. Logged onto CC - what a change in Internet speed! It's amazing the difference - I'm getting almost instant posting - no more waiting half a minute for a message to post and hoping like crazy it WILL post before it times out and I have to retype the whole thing. Startling how much the Internet had degraded on the Star since Istanbul!