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Ship wifi for work

Dayana

By Dayana,
in Norwegian Cruise Line

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TonyFred

TonyFred

Posted
Posted

The internet on NCL is still not up to par. I would not want to count on it if there are time sensitive matters involved. My experience on the Getaway in 2015 was not great internet wise. There were times you could get a decent signal and other times that you couldnt connect at all. We departed on a Saturday and I dont believe anyone could connect until later on Sunday...afternoon time. They did deduct a day's charge from my bill.

Good luck.

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Jeffffffs

Jeffffffs

Posted
Posted
Beware that they have nobbled the wifi such that if you try to connect to a VPN, the wifi disconnects, so the VPN will not work.

 

I had similar issues with a remote connection. I could connect and access simple thing, but had frequent disconnects when trying to open and work with large documents. Email worked fairly well.

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casofilia

casofilia

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Anyone ever used ship wifi for work purposes. Like to access work material online.

 

No but I would agree with other posters that ship WiFi can be terribly iffy. There was someone who used to do her work on the ships WiFi before 6am having got it ready the previous evening. Very few people online at that time and so she said she had far fewer fall-out problems.

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casofilia

casofilia

Posted
Posted (edited)
I need it so I can have remote access to my desktop at work. I need to be able to review a few documents from my job in real time.

 

All I can say is "Good Luck". The problem will be connectivity with the satellite and the number of people trying to use it too.

Edited by casofilia
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blackwing Great Review Rare

blackwing

Posted
Posted

I agree with the "good luck" sentiment. Remote desktop is much more intense than simply logging into webmail and checking your work email. I think you'd be much better off having a pre-arranged time for them to send the document to your email. Open it up using your regular email program and then send comments back. Trying to do anything in "real time"... you're basically at the mercy of the ship's wifi and everyone else also trying to connect at the same time.

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chengkp75

chengkp75

Posted
Posted (edited)

Yes, remember that passenger internet time on the satellite bandwidth is just the remainder after the ship uses it for its business. This is why late at night and early mornings are best times. During the day, the ship is transmitting POS transactions, maintenance and purchasing information, and personnel data, so passenger service slows down dramatically.

 

VDI will most likely be painfully slow at best, and non-responsive at worst.

Edited by chengkp75
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mking8288 "Live from...." Rare

mking8288

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Posted (edited)

Assumed that you have a cost center to charge back for reimbursement as office/work-related expenses - do what you have to do while on vacation, a cruise at high seas; and, have a plan B and plan C ;)

 

Take whatever devices you plan/need to use to go online with work to your I.T. dept at work, and have them check, review & adjust your app & system settings, including hardware level, VPN, DNS, etc. etc. - and test it to confirm that it's working, including the browser(s) & firewall configuration. Re-verify it from home/outside before leaving on a similiarly slow connection i.e. McD, Starbucks, DD, etc.

 

Plan ahead for port days to know where & how to get a cellular and WiFi signal, when I travel abroad - I do not, never count on getting a free & unsecured WiFi signal; and, most definitely, not with sensitive corporate or company emals & documents.

 

Good luck & please share on your success, hopefully - a positive outcome.

 

P.S. Are are familiar with Linix OS and ever use it - mine is portable on an USB stick, can run off someone's PC or laptop as a standalone.

Edited by mking8288
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Maddysdaddy

Maddysdaddy

Posted
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My family and I sailed on the Escape this spring, and I had no success trying to log into my desktop using Citrix.

 

I was able to access email via the computer and my work cell (although depending on location and time of day, it was often slow), and had to have my assistant locate and email me the documents I needed to keep working.

 

I found that I had the best success maintaining a reasonable/reasonably 'not slow' connection to the net after 11 pm and before 7 am - which was ok, since those are my work hours when I'm on vacay with my family.

 

I need it so I can have remote access to my desktop at work. I need to be able to review a few documents from my job in real time.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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AmazedByCruising

AmazedByCruising

Posted
Posted
Yes, remember that passenger internet time on the satellite bandwidth is just the remainder after the ship uses it for its business. This is why late at night and early mornings are best times. During the day, the ship is transmitting POS transactions, maintenance and purchasing information, and personnel data, so passenger service slows down dramatically.

 

VDI will most likely be painfully slow at best, and non-responsive at worst.

 

All the things you mention should be like the amount of data a 20s video of a cat needs. A few MB before compression. If the ship needs serious bandwidth, it's probably just making backups. If that's the case, and you happen to be the boss of the IT people again, tell them to google "rsync" to get it fixed. The amount of data people really add daily by clicking or typing is quite limited.

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Cyclops32

Cyclops32

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Posted

The one thing you have to remember is that you are bouncing off of satellites. That causes a huge delay you have to send it up and back down again then the reply has to do the same. Weather can also play a roll too. Add that to the fact that hundreds if not more people are sharing that link I would be surprised that anything real time interactions worked. Things like email are small in most cases and you do not know about it until it gets there and a lot OK for web pages get reviewed by multiple people so the basically cache a lot of that content on board the ship after the first request so webpages send less across the links.

 

So with that said you may be lucky but I would not plan on it

 

Sent from my XT1254 using Forums mobile app

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BirdTravels "Live from...." Rare

BirdTravels

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I need it so I can have remote access to my desktop at work. I need to be able to review a few documents from my job in real time.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

Remote access to your desktop is both interactive and could be data intensive. Not good over shared satellite. Works ok for email and things that are predictive like web surfing where associated links are cached on a local server.

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Loonbeam

Loonbeam

Posted
Posted

I'll be more blunt. Assume no. On the escape I got at best 8.5 mb/s download speeds late at night, during the day at one point I got a 0.03...Upload speed never broke 1....

 

Add in a latency factor almost 200 times worse than cell data which will pretty much force any secure tunnel to time out. My VPN app basically turned, looked at me and made a rude gesture.

 

BTW, even the faster internet systems at sea make up a lot of the speed by doing predictive caching (which doesn't help VPNS) and only work well in certain geographic areas. Plus RCCL has locked in all the existing and new satellite time coming on line thru 2017

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chengkp75

chengkp75

Posted
Posted
All the things you mention should be like the amount of data a 20s video of a cat needs. A few MB before compression. If the ship needs serious bandwidth, it's probably just making backups. If that's the case, and you happen to be the boss of the IT people again, tell them to google "rsync" to get it fixed. The amount of data people really add daily by clicking or typing is quite limited.

 

I'm not real tech savvy, but I do know that the ship's desktop computers, and there are probably 50 or more, are online to corporate 24/7 in real time, which I assume means a virtual desktop. As an officer types a requisition into the system onboard, that data is going to the same program on the corporate server as he/she types. We also can see keystrokes done by corporate. Also, the surveillance cameras can be accessed remotely by corporate at any time, and I'm told this video feed takes a lot of bandwidth.

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PaulaSB12

PaulaSB12

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Posted
I need it so I can have remote access to my desktop at work. I need to be able to review a few documents from my job in real time.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

 

 

I am on the epic now and have been able to play the games I like on my iPad candy crush and paradise bay. I also have got email had a Skype call with my sister and streamed video on YouTube, though that was slow. Also used Netflix (I wake up early and there wasn't anything I wanted to watch on their tv stations) with very little problems.

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