Ship internet about to improve?

[ballroom-cruisers]

The recent news that Royal Caribbean has signed a contract to to implement SpaceX's Starlink, and getting the new electronics and antennas installed in all their ships has already started, with the plan that all their ships will be fully kitted out to benefit with fully functional fast internet for all passengers by spring of next year.  Trials have apparently been highly successful with rave reviews by passengers who tried it out, and if all goes well then passengers could be looking at download speeds of at least 100Mbps, which is faster than most people have on their internet at home! I wonder if Cunard might be considering a corresponding upgrade, even though it would cost Cunard between $5k and $10k per month to pay for this kind of service..... perhaps the Royal Caribbean initiative might lead to other lines needing to install a corresponding internet system to remain competitive?

 

I also saw a blog post by a passenger who bought a short cruise on Freedom of the  Seas which is the ship Royal Caribbean installed the new equipment on, specifically in order to test the new internet!  The blog post on the Royal Caribbean blog site had quite a few details, and the passenger reported that on deck 5 using the Voom Surf & Stream internet package, that they bought specifically to test the available speeds, they got a download speed of 77.03 Mbps and upload speed of 15.72 Mbps, with a latency of 38ms.  That is excellent, even if we had that at home! Even from inside their stateroom they achieved a download speed of 19.9 Mbps and upload speed of 5.42 Mbps.  I suspect most people would be delighted with that performance when connecting a phone, tablet or laptop on board! The same blog post also said that they were still able to stream video even using the more basic internet package with slower speeds than those quoted!

Edited September 2, 2022 by ballroom-cruisers
Added section for more information

[exlondoner]

I should think Cunard are about as likely to emulate RCI by installing an ice rink as to do this. I get the impression that they reckon the majority of passengers find the internet faults a mild irritation, but no more, and they are probably right.

[frankp01]

There's always the possibility that Royal signed an exclusive with Starlink. Those details haven't come out yet. And in looking at the Starlink coverage map, there's also the issue that Starlink may not cover the north Atlantic (at least, not yet). For example, much of southeastern United States doesn't have Starlink coverage yet. If the satellites are that location-specific, I would be surprised if Starlink invested in ocean coverage (at this point, anyway). 

[mcloaked]

I had a look at one of the Starlink live coverage maps - which is a 3d map and you can drag the globe to see every part of the world. Certainly the UK seems reasonably covered, and most of Europe, but Scandinavia looks sparse. The Atlantic looks covered but not as far north as a latitude line just south of Greenland, and that line continues on to just north of Hudson Bay as you go west to America.  So yes there is a ring along that path around the north of the world and little coverage further north than that. But the typical routes that QM2 goes TA looks like there is coverage, and of course the Caribbean looks OK, which is presumably one reason that RCL would not be unhappy with coverage.

[tv24]

IMHO Cunard does not really care to provide adequate internet service even though they claim to have upgraded.  That may change in the future, but I am not counting on it.  I am really fed up with this lack of service.