Ship List--REAL Voom Internet (your help appreciated)

[joshuamg]

Any chance anyone here has experience with Voom on Celebrity? Their agents tell me it's "the same" as royal caribbean now. Curious if any of Celebrities ships are on O3B.

[Clarea]

1 hour ago, joshuamg said:

Any chance anyone here has experience with Voom on Celebrity? Their agents tell me it's "the same" as royal caribbean now. Curious if any of Celebrities ships are on O3B.

 

That would be better asked here:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/16-celebrity-cruises/

[matchacreamkitty]

On 8/22/2019 at 2:20 PM, Crism said:

Jewel did NOT have real Voom as of 1/19. 

 

Thanks! Was it good though? Were you able to make VOIP calls?

[Crism]

32 minutes ago, matchacreamkitty said:

 

Thanks! Was it good though? Were you able to make VOIP calls?

 

I don't remember. I'm heading back next Monday so I'll check it out next week!

[matchacreamkitty]

On 8/23/2019 at 1:47 PM, joshuamg said:

@serialcruiser48 Thanks so much for your additional feedback here and the lovely "gloom" lingo. I'm totally stealing that! 😉 I worked 3 B2Bs from the Brilliance last fall on Gloom and it actually worked out ok for what I needed but of course I'd rather have O3B to ensure better stability for my video meetings (I do 6 hrs of Zoom Video mtgs a day, surprisingly, Gloom on the Brilliance squeaked by!). From your experience, would you suggest a ship with Gloom over a ship with Capped Voom O3B (60mb Enchantment)?

 

6 hrs of Zoom mtgs a day...You are my hero 🙂 I am on Allure of the Seas right now and today was my first day working remotely on cruise. My first zoom meeting went ok because internet cut off whenever the room door close and open. 

 

Do you usually work in public area? Any outlets? 

 

[DustFSU]

I just ordered Voom plus stream. Does it time you out and have to log into it? Or once you are onboard and set it up you are good to go?

[Sunshine3601]

1 hour ago, DustFSU said:

I just ordered Voom plus stream. Does it time you out and have to log into it? Or once you are onboard and set it up you are good to go?

Once you are logged on you are good to go for duration of your trip.  My phone would automatically reconnect to ship wifi after a port day as long as you set up wifi to automatically reconnect.

[DustFSU]

17 minutes ago, Sunshine3601 said:

Once you are logged on you are good to go for duration of your trip.  My phone would automatically reconnect to ship wifi after a port day as long as you set up wifi to automatically reconnect.

Thanks so much for the help

[matchacreamkitty]

On 3/3/2020 at 9:47 AM, DustFSU said:

I just ordered Voom plus stream. Does it time you out and have to log into it? Or once you are onboard and set it up you are good to go?

 

I had some issues switching devices. A simple trick was going to the browser and go to the following pages:

logout.com

logmein.com

 

 

[Michelle H]

The note on the Ovation was interesting. We did the Ovation in August to Alaska, and the Internet was fantastic. We had 0 issues, and were streaming stuff left and right, and uploading photos and stuff. In fact, the only ship in the last 2 years we've had crappy Internet on was the Radiance, but no idea if they upgraded it by now or not.

[Brucemcdou]

Hi - any update on the progress in updating older RCI ships with "real" Voom?  In particular interested in Adventure, Vision and Rhapsody OTS.  We're currently booked on Harmony OTS for a transatlantic in Oct 2021 (which has real Voom) but would consider moving to one of the other ships for lower suite pricing if the internet was acceptable.

 

Related question - any reports on the signal strength/stability on real Voom during Transatlantic crossings?  Haven't done a TA in about 6-8 years (all on X) and we experienced internet dead spots after leaving the Canary Islands until nearing Florida.  

 

Thanks in advance for any more recent info!  

[twangster]

28 minutes ago, Brucemcdou said:

Hi - any update on the progress in updating older RCI ships with "real" Voom?  In particular interested in Adventure, Vision and Rhapsody OTS.  We're currently booked on Harmony OTS for a transatlantic in Oct 2021 (which has real Voom) but would consider moving to one of the other ships for lower suite pricing if the internet was acceptable.

 

Related question - any reports on the signal strength/stability on real Voom during Transatlantic crossings?  Haven't done a TA in about 6-8 years (all on X) and we experienced internet dead spots after leaving the Canary Islands until nearing Florida.  

 

Thanks in advance for any more recent info!  

 

No update that we know of.  I doubt Royal is spending money to upgrade ships during this pause but that's just my opinion.  I not expecting any new or different ships to magically be O3b once they restart.

 

For O3b ships on transatlantics it works just like the Caribbean.  

Edited September 28, 2020 by twangster

[Biker19]

39 minutes ago, Brucemcdou said:

- any update on the progress in updating older RCI ships with "real" Voom?

RCI wouldn't even pay for a new light blue paint for Explorer (like other ships got in drydock), so one should not expect it to upgrade something that already works (most of the time). 

 

Biker, who thinks that years down the road RCI will eventually shift to low earth orbit internet. 

[Brucemcdou]

24 minutes ago, twangster said:

 

For O3b ships on transatlantics it works just like the Caribbean.  

Thanks twangster - this is the kind of detail I was looking for.  Happy cruising!

[Kokomo91165]

Can anyone confirm Independence has the “real” and faster Voom internet?

[Biker19]

32 minutes ago, Kokomo91165 said:

Can anyone confirm Independence has the “real” and faster Voom internet?

Yes, all Freedom class ships have O3B internet.

[Kokomo91165]

2 hours ago, Biker19 said:

Yes, all Freedom class ships have O3B internet.

Thank you so much. 

[Biker19]

Not sure this will affect RCI's future plans for getting O3B on other ships:

 

SES Networks is preparing to launch its next-generation O3b mPOWER satellites, which will 'revolutionize' service for customers including cruise lines.

 

This constellation of 11 non-geostationary satellites operating in medium Earth orbit is capable of delivering multi-gigabit connectivity services to a variety of industries globally, including maritime.

 

mPOWER combines digital technologies with multi-orbit satellites and cloud scale. Capacity goes from from 10 beams per satellite to 5,000 beams per satellite. This is the first terabit per second constellation, according to Steve Collar, CEO of SES Networks.

'Serving every single cruise ship'

'We go from [the capability of] serving the top 50 cruise ships on the planet to every single cruise ship on the planet,' Collar said Tuesday from Boeing's El Segundo, California facility where the first satellites are being prepared for launch by year's end.

The software-driven O3b mPOWER communications system is capable of delivering intelligence-driven connectivity services from tens of megabits to multiple gigabits per second, enabling customers to optimize their global bandwidth availability and resiliency.

Announced customers include Carnival Corp. & plc, French telecom Orange and iSat Africa. SES also announced Microsoft signed on as the latest mPOWER customer and will use the middle Earth orbit for additional network diversity, service resiliency and gigabit connectivity as more critical workloads move to the cloud.

 

MedallionClass Cruising

For Carnival Corp., high-speed MedallionNet Wi-Fi, created in partnership with O3b, is the 'central hinge pin' for the entire MedallionClass experience, now fleetwide on Princess Cruises, said John Padgett, chief experience and innovation officer, Carnival Corp. & plc.

Connectivity is 'beyond fundamental,' Padgett stressed.

Cloud services on cruise ships

In terms of speed, MedallionNet provides land-like connectivity for passengers and crew. But it's the reliability that's 'so fundamental to transitioning your entire operation from an offline operation to an online operation that is fully synchronized with the cloud.

 

'People thought we were insane to suggest that we could have cloud services on a cruise ship because that was always thought to be structurally impossible,' Padgett said. 'With O3b mPOWER, we’re transitioning into an operation that is fully synchronized with the cloud and cost-efficiently moving into gigabit services for cruise ships.'

 

Padgett tracked the transition: Ten years ago a cruise ship had maybe 10 megabits per second of connectivity, then 50 Mbps five years ago. MedallionNet took that to, typically, more than 400 Mbps.

Leap to gigabits

'Now, with mPOWER, we're going to cost efficiently move into gigabit service to a cruise ship. Talk about empowering intelligence! There are literally millions and millions of data points a day we're running in our global operations centers with a mobile platform like a cruise ship, which is enabled by the service.

 

'The service for the guests is amazing,' Padgett said. 'But when you think about transforming your business operation driven by intelligence, that also relies on mPOWER. You can't do that with latent information. It has to be in real time.

World's first truly smart cities

Padgett said this will make cruise ships the world's first truly smart cities.

He noted they provide every service — safety, health, hotel, casino gaming, recreation, spas. 'All those experiences are now completely online,' Padgett said. 'When you fully connect every product and service and experience on a unified platform and fuse that with connectivity, it's essentially unlimited, these services you can give, and all unique to that individual.'

Padgett added that connectivity for the crew is fundamental, too.

Intelligently orchestrating connectivity

'The satellite industry is moving to a software-based world, and I am proud to say we are leading this movement with innovation across the O3b mPOWER system,' Collar said. 'Our O3b mPOWER ground infrastructure is largely software-based, allowing us to intelligently orchestrate connectivity services across our global network — something never done before.'

Cape Canaveral SpaceX launch

The first batch of three O3b mPOWER satellites are scheduled to be launched by SpaceX from Cape Canaveral in December, followed by two more launches in 2022. The constellation is expected to start delivering services as of third quarter 2022.

 

SES Networks next-gen satellites to revolutionize cruise connectivity (seatrade-cruise.com)

[Biker19]

On 9/28/2020 at 5:44 PM, Biker19 said:

Biker, who thinks that years down the road RCI will eventually shift to low earth orbit internet. 

Looks like Biker may have been correct:

 

There could be a new generation of high-speed internet coming to Royal Caribbean's cruise ships.

 

Based on regulatory filings, it appears Royal Caribbean is engaged with SpaceX’s satellite internet system Starlink to provide internet service for its ships.

 

A new filing with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Friday details a plan to bring the new type of internet to cruise ships.

The letter was sent to the FCC by Royal Caribbean Group Vice President of Operational Excellence, John Maya, to ask the agency to "expeditiously" approve a new plan to use Starlink on Royal Caribbean ships.

 

The above is from the unofficial  RC Blog. 

[jmw1975]

13 hours ago, Biker19 said:

 

Based on regulatory filings, it appears Royal Caribbean is engaged with SpaceX’s satellite internet system Starlink to provide internet service for its ships.

 

An article confirming this just came across my news feed! I wonder how quickly it will be implemented.

 

https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/royal-caribbean

 

 

[Biker19]

6 hours ago, jmw1975 said:

 I wonder how quickly it will be implemented.

I assume RCI is pressing for this to make it happen on Icon - about 16 months from sailing. 

[ChickonRules]

We were on Odyssey in March and the internet was good. I never ran a speed test but had no issues with FaceTime and watching videos.

[Biker19]

On 6/11/2022 at 8:20 PM, jmw1975 said:

I wonder how quickly it will be implemented.

The timeline might be a bit quicker than that:

 

 

[Biker19]

This as good a thread as any to track the Starlink installs across the fleet - what we'll call "real" Voom from now on as the performance should be better than even O3B.

 

Freedom was confirmed some time ago.

 

For anyone interested, the original thread about the Voom transition from geostationary sats to MEO (O3B) is in this thread: 

 

Edited September 27, 2022 by Biker19