Carnival Wifi Multiple Device Sharing

[jcknight007]

Ok, so I'm sure I'll get flamed for the heresy of bringing electronics on vacation but here goes. Let's say I brought my windows laptop, my iphone and my Kindle Fire with me aboard ship. Then I purchase Carnival's top tier wifi plan. Now, I realize that I can switch back and forth between devices but what if I wanted my iphone AND my laptop connected at the same time? Can I share the connection between multiple devices by either 1. Using Windows 10's hotspot feature? 2. Third party software like "Connectify"? or 3. A wifi to wifi travel router? Has anyone had any success with this?

[bUU]

Ok, so I'm sure I'll get flamed for the heresy of bringing electronics on vacation but here goes. Let's say I brought my windows laptop, my iphone and my Kindle Fire with me aboard ship. Then I purchase Carnival's top tier wifi plan. Now, I realize that I can switch back and forth between devices but what if I wanted my iphone AND my laptop connected at the same time? Can I share the connection between multiple devices by either 1. Using Windows 10's hotspot feature? 2. Third party software like "Connectify"? or 3. A wifi to wifi travel router? Has anyone had any success with this?

Personally I don't see that as something flameworthy. This is a device or a service within a device you already have that is intended to do exactly what it is you are aiming to do with it. We are not talking about illegal devices or illegal software. If that usage was to be prohibited by the cruise line it would be incumbent upon the cruise line to say so in their terms and conditions. They do not. If they really wanted to be that fastidious​ about the way they charge for service they would meter it by megabyte, gigabyte or something like that rather than by device.

 

Whether it will work or not is a good question. I will also be waiting to see the answer.

 

This message may have been entered using voice recognition. Please excuse any typos.

[PattBenatar]

The only thing that you can do is buy another package. If you wish to do "Double net usage" then pay for double, don't try and "share".

[LouisianaCruiser4200]

Connecting your laptop then creating its own network should work. If I paid for the top tier pack, I'd try and share it

[Smithkids5521]

Ok, so I'm sure I'll get flamed for the heresy of bringing electronics on vacation but here goes. Let's say I brought my windows laptop, my iphone and my Kindle Fire with me aboard ship. Then I purchase Carnival's top tier wifi plan. Now, I realize that I can switch back and forth between devices but what if I wanted my iphone AND my laptop connected at the same time? Can I share the connection between multiple devices by either 1. Using Windows 10's hotspot feature? 2. Third party software like "Connectify"? or 3. A wifi to wifi travel router? Has anyone had any success with this?

 

It definitely sounds possible... I guess the real question is how fast will your speeds be? Will it be worth splitting the connection if it slows both of your devices down to the point where nothing loads. Hopefully someone who has accomplished this recently will be able to let us all know.

[RachelC33]

You can share a wifi package between devices, but unfortunately cannot use the same connection at the same time. If you log a different device into the wifi, it logs you out of the other. Tried it on our most recent cruise. Ended up buying my 14 year old the social package because I was tired of her logging me out of my package (sadly, I have to stay connected for work, yes, even on vacation).

[coevan]

This is what I do on my boat in the Caribbean. Yes a router would work with a mifi device. I would pick up a free wifi signal "Simpson Bay Marina' for example. The router would change the name to the name of my boat and anyone can log on. My wifi antenna is on my mast and I can pick up signals a 1/4 mile away.

[bUU]

The only thing that you can do is buy another package.

That's pretty much what I was asking... Is there a way to put two of them into the cart and check out?

 

 

It definitely sounds possible... I guess the real question is how fast will your speeds be? Will it be worth splitting the connection if it slows both of your devices down to the point where nothing loads. Hopefully someone who has accomplished this recently will be able to let us all know.

I think what you're saying boils down to whether or not they impose governors on individual connections to make sure that the available bandwidth is shared evenly. There is QoS capabilities that give more or less priority, but I don't think I've read anything about cruise ships employing such capabilities to cap individual connections. As such, the impact would probably be the same as if you tried it at home.

[originalgeek]

Even the top tier is frustratingly slow so I'm not sure how successful sharing it will be but it's certainly worth a try. IF I understand the technology correctly (and I certainly may not! lol) your second device is behind your first device so I don't know if the ship can detect that traffic and block it. Seems to me a hot-spot should handle the traffic and present it to the ship's router as one connection. I can pretty much guarantee you both aren't streaming a movie at the same time but you might both be able to crush some candy.

 

You're paying for a certain amount of bandwidth and I don't see why anyone should mind how you divide it up but you know cruise lines like to make their money.

[jgodfrey82]

I had no problem sharing the wifi package between a few devices last year on the magic. I signed up for the wifi on my samsung S7 then enabled the hotspot feature and logged my laptop and 2 other phones into the hotspot. Noted that none were very fast but I was able to download a game or two to my daughters phone as well as use my laptop to reply to some emails in outlook. Can't wait to test again this June l.

 

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[bUU]

Even the top tier is frustratingly slow so I'm not sure how successful sharing it will be but it's certainly worth a try.

The question is, "Where is the bottleneck?" I bet that the bottleneck is between the ship and the shore (and not within the ship itself). If that's the case, and there's no QoS nonsense going on, splitting your connection that way really shouldn't make a big difference between home and aboard ship.

 

IF I understand the technology correctly (and I certainly may not! lol) your second device is behind your first device so I don't know if the ship can detect that traffic and block it.

Yeah, now you're getting in the the area I'm hazy on as well. I know that these services use NAT. I think of it as an envelope inside an envelope. So they should be able to sniff it out, but do they care enough to do so? Again, I think if they're going to go that far, they might as well start charging by bit.

 

You're paying for a certain amount of bandwidth

Well, actually that's not the case. I'm not sure it matters, but I haven't seen anything indicating you're paying for bandwidth.

[coevan]

" I bet that the bottleneck is between the ship and the shore (and not within the ship itself)." There is no shore involved. The ship uses a satellite connection. The bottleneck is purely not enough bandwidth for the amount of people on the ship.

[bUU]

" I bet that the bottleneck is between the ship and the shore (and not within the ship itself)." There is no shore involved. The ship uses a satellite connection.

There is still "shore" involved. The satellite connection connects the ship to Internet resources on the shore, and thereby available via terrestrial transport.

 

The bottleneck is purely not enough bandwidth for the amount of people on the ship.

This makes no sense in light of the fact that I have not read a single report of users being unable to access the Hub server. If the problem was bandwidth aboard ship, then it would affect access to the Hub server as well. The fact that no one reports that they cannot reach the Hub server indicates to me that the bottleneck is between the ship and the shore as I said earlier.

[originalgeek]

The question is, "Where is the bottleneck?" I bet that the bottleneck is between the ship and the shore (and not within the ship itself). If that's the case, and there's no QoS nonsense going on, splitting your connection that way really shouldn't make a big difference between home and aboard ship.

 

Yeah, now you're getting in the the area I'm hazy on as well. I know that these services use NAT. I think of it as an envelope inside an envelope. So they should be able to sniff it out, but do they care enough to do so? Again, I think if they're going to go that far, they might as well start charging by bit.

 

Well, actually that's not the case. I'm not sure it matters, but I haven't seen anything indicating you're paying for bandwidth.

 

Yeah I reckon you're really paying for access to the bandwidth they have but not necessarily guaranteed any certain amount that is "yours". They do claim when you buy the top tier you get faster speeds so I just figured that meant they allotted you a little bit more of their bandwidth.

 

But a poster above us said he did it successfully so I guess they don't care to try and block that. It's till just one connection from you to them so they probably don't care much how it's used.

 

 

I'm looking forward to trying it next cruise! this gets the geek in me all hopped up like I was eating donuts and drinking Mountain Dew! lol

[bUU]

Yeah I reckon you're really paying for access to the bandwidth they have but not necessarily guaranteed any certain amount that is "yours".

Precisely. Even where they do talk about bandwidth, on shore at home with most residential broadband Internet services, they're not even guaranteeing you a certain amount that is "yours", but just that when the network isn't busy, they'll let you use up to that amount of bandwidth.

 

They do claim when you buy the top tier you get faster speeds so I just figured that meant they allotted you a little bit more of their bandwidth.

Okay so there is some QoS stuff. It probably isn't set bandwidth - like I said, no one does that - but rather QoS affords certain connections prioritization over the rest.

 

I've never been 100% clear how routers implement QoS. The way it reads to me is that it is absolute prioritization, which would mean that the entry into the network of one prioritized heavy user could radically adversely affect the performance of all the non-prioritized users in the network.

 

But a poster above us said he did it successfully so I guess they don't care to try and block that. It's till just one connection from you to them so they probably don't care much how it's used.

100 people reading email use up fewer resources than one person streaming a movie from Netflix.

[Rogueperson]

I think this would work for your cabin, but beyond that, it would be limited. You are surrounded by metal which generally interferes with wi-fi signals. How much time will you be spending in your cabin. Also, if your "main" unit is connected to your router, then you would have to disconnect that, to connect your device to use around the ship which would leave your router connectionless and useless.

 

And of course, the quality of the internet. I have not used Carnival's new internet, but I used Royal Caribbeans' "new voom" that allows streaming. Its not great, but doable. The latency is quite high, but if you're patient, you can stream and watch stuff with netflix and hulu with some reliability. I had 1 device, so i'm not sure if splitting that signal would degrade it further.

[bUU]

It definitely sounds possible... I guess the real question is how fast will your speeds be? Will it be worth splitting the connection if it slows both of your devices down to the point where nothing loads. Hopefully someone who has accomplished this recently will be able to let us all know.

We are just back. Our Hootoo Nano worked great aboard Carnival Magic. The matter of speed seemed to be related to the full network utilization, not utilization of the Hootoo. We'd have slow performance even using one device, when the network was slow. We'd have fast performance, even when using two devices, when the network was fast.

 

I think this would work for your cabin, but beyond that, it would be limited.

Well, yes and no. The Hootoo Nano is tiny, and so connected to a small battery (mine is smaller than a wallet) it was with us and worked wherever we were on the ship; it was only a matter of us being together. Which we were practically the whole time.

[Oklahoma Cruiser 2012]

My question about this: if when you put it in your cart, it charges for both people, why can't both people be connected at the same time? If it's only one device at a time, should it not be a single charge, not x2?  Or am I seeing this wrong? 

Edited January 26, 2019 by Oklahoma Cruiser 2012

[bUU]

It only charged us for one.

[jimbo5544]

19 hours ago, Oklahoma Cruiser 2012 said:

My question about this: if when you put it in your cart, it charges for both people, why can't both people be connected at the same time? If it's only one device at a time, should it not�be a single charge, not x2?��Or am I seeing this wrong?�

Not sure how you view it, but the facts are it is for one instance that can used on any device.

[tja273]

On 1/26/2019 at 11:03 AM, Oklahoma Cruiser 2012 said:

My question about this: if when you put it in your cart, it charges for both people, why can't both people be connected at the same time? If it's only one device at a time, should it not be a single charge, not x2?  Or am I seeing this wrong? 

 

When you put it in your cart, it is connected to one person. Look at your purchases for your trip. You'll see excursions under both names, but the wifi is only under one name. You CAN absolutely buy a second wifi package for the other person and it is assigned to them.