Starlink Internet Seems Like A Fail To Me. Why Is It So Slow?

[Spaniel Lover]

Two of my recent cruises have used Starlink as the Internet Service Provider, including a recent cruise on Celebrity Solstice.  I had high hopes that Starlink was going to improve the quality of Internet access on cruise ships, but in both cases, the Internet connection was quite slow.

Take a look at this video where I show you the specifics of the Internet speeds I was able to get using Starlink on cruise ships, compared to a much faster connection I had recently on a cruise ship that was not using Starlink.
 

 

[RichYak]

Can't you just tell us the specific issues you had without driving us to your Youtube video?

[TeeRick]

It is not the Starlink that is the problem.  It has been documented here on CC that the ship puts a significant throttle on the download and upload speeds.  And since most everybody has the standard WiFi there is a user sharing issue too.  We had premium Wifi on Equinox with Starlink- the best I experienced on any cruise.

[mahdnc]

19 minutes ago, Spaniel Lover said:

Two of my recent cruises have used Starlink as the Internet Service Provider, including a recent cruise on Celebrity Solstice.  I had high hopes that Starlink was going to improve the quality of Internet access on cruise ships, but in both cases, the Internet connection was quite slow.

Take a look at this video where I show you the specifics of the Internet speeds I was able to get using Starlink on cruise ships, compared to a much faster connection I had recently on a cruise ship that was not using Starlink.
 

 

 

I found this active thread to be informative. CC members on the different ships so far (Apex, Millennium, and Constellation) are paying their internet speed tests conducted several times a day. You may want to check it out. 

 

 

[markeb]

35 minutes ago, RichYak said:

Can't you just tell us the specific issues you had without driving us to your Youtube video?

No intention of driving up someone’s click rate. Especially if the poster is the YouTuber. 

[Charles4515]

59 minutes ago, Spaniel Lover said:

Two of my recent cruises have used Starlink as the Internet Service Provider, including a recent cruise on Celebrity Solstice.  I had high hopes that Starlink was going to improve the quality of Internet access on cruise ships, but in both cases, the Internet connection was quite slow.

Where were the ships sailing? Starlink has not launched all their satellites so there are coverage gaps. If you are in an area without coverage it will say Starlink but fall back to the older satellites. That has not been removed. Starlink is an add on so the cruise line is not saving money at this time installing Starlink. They are paying for both the old and the new. As far as your speeds on Celebration Carnival supplements their service with ground stations and if you are in port the ship won't be on satellites. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Charles4515

[Charles4515]

37 minutes ago, markeb said:

No intention of driving up someone’s click rate. Especially if the poster is the YouTuber. 

I watched it and there were no ads. Anyone with an account can upload videos to YouTube. That does not make them a YouTube influencer. I don't think he is. I have uploaded a bunch of videos to Youtube. (I make mine private and password protected as they are only for groups or family) Personally to make the point he was making I would have posted screenshots of the speeds not a YouTube link to Cruise Critic. They would have made his point. Not even sure CC will allow the YouTube link to stay up.  

Edited April 22, 2023 by Charles4515

[cruiserchuck]

We were on the Solstice last week, and the internet speed in our cabin was very slow, even for simple tasks such as checking email and surfing the net.  However, we discovered that there were places on the ship where the speed was very fast.  So speed seems to depend on your location on the ship.  

Edited April 22, 2023 by cruiserchuck

[NutsAboutGolf]

4 hours ago, TeeRick said:

It is not the Starlink that is the problem.  It has been documented here on CC that the ship puts a significant throttle on the download and upload speeds.  And since most everybody has the standard WiFi there is a user sharing issue too.  We had premium Wifi on Equinox with Starlink- the best I experienced on any cruise.

 

Don't on the Carnival Celebration or it will ruin you, it's often over 60mbps while X is 4mbps, that's 15x faster

[NutsAboutGolf]

The elephant in the room is its just X being X, they're being cheap by throttling it down.  On your post sail survey, mark the internet a "1" and mention carnival is 15x faster

[NutsAboutGolf]

4 hours ago, markeb said:

No intention of driving up someone’s click rate. Especially if the poster is the YouTuber. 

 

I don't mean the following in a disrespectful way, I'm just pointing out he has nearly a half-million subscribers, I believe he's the #1 cruise-specific youtuber; most likely because he used to be a radio DJ and has a very soothing voice;...100 people on here not watching won't have any affect

 

If we want X to survive long term, they have to attract the youngins that were dragged aboard by their parents and to do that they'll need fast internet

 

His overall point is X is overpromising fast internet yet underdelivering on the speed.  Other cruise lines use starlink and do not throttle it down to X's minimal speed.  With that being said, X's starlink is a huge improvement from Xcelerate or whatever they were using before as you often had problems with websites not even loading

[prmssk]

The infrastructure on a ship is also going to affect internet speeds and consistency across the whole ship.  Just getting Starlink to the ship doesn't mean the ship's network can adequately distribute it to all the passengers that want internet. I don't think it's necessarily apples to apples to compare one of Carnival's newest ships (the Celebration) to a ship like the Solstice that was originally built with older technology and built during a time when most people didn't carry a connected device everywhere they went.  Demand for internet on cruises has exploded between the time the Solstice was built and the Celebration was built, not to mention advances in technology.

 

That said, we had a better experience than he is describing on RC's Freedom of the Seas a couple months ago with download speeds around 15 and higher (which to me is more than sufficient).  We'll be on the Celebrity Eclipse soon and am interested to see how the speeds are on that ship, especially as we cross the Pacific.

[FeelingCruisy]

Got off 2 previous cruises, we found starlink Solstice Mexican Riviera (got off April 15) and Constellation Caribbean and South America (got off Arpil 5) to be exceptional.  Almost no drop off during the entire cruise except overnight a couple nights, and the speed was more than adequate for regular browsing for the low speeds.  The high speed we got from elite plus was almost perfect and we managed to make calls, downloads, installs, no problem.   I suspect it could've been your location perhaps.   Compared to the infinity when it was in south America last November, this is like Rolls Royce of internet compared to Hyundai.

Edited April 22, 2023 by FeelingCruisy

[FeelingCruisy]

1 hour ago, cruiserchuck said:

We were on the Solstice last week, and the internet speed in our cabin was very slow, even for simple tasks such as checking email and surfing the net.  However, we discovered that there were places on the ship where the speed was very fast.  So speed seems to depend on your location on the ship.  

That is very interesting.   We were in the same cruise or close to it and internet was better than ever.   (Aqua 1129)

[NutsAboutGolf]

3 minutes ago, prmssk said:

The infrastructure on a ship is also going to affect internet speeds and consistency across the whole ship.  Just getting Starlink to the ship doesn't mean the ship's network can adequately distribute it to all the passengers that want internet. I don't think it's necessarily apples to apples to compare one of Carnival's newest ships (the Celebration) to a ship like the Solstice that was originally built with older technology and built during a time when most people didn't carry a connected device everywhere they went.  Demand for internet on cruises has exploded between the time the Solstice was built and the Celebration was built, not to mention advances in technology.

 

That said, we had a better experience than he is describing on RC's Freedom of the Seas a couple months ago with download speeds around 15 and higher (which to me is more than sufficient).  We'll be on the Celebrity Eclipse soon and am interested to see how the speeds are on that ship, especially as we cross the Pacific.

 

Reportedly the Beyond has been greatly throttled down

 

 

 

[RichYak]

4 minutes ago, prmssk said:

I don't think it's necessarily apples to apples to compare one of Carnival's newest ships (the Celebration) to a ship like the Solstice that was originally built with older technology and built during a time when most people didn't carry a connected device everywhere they went.  Demand for internet on cruises has exploded between the time the Solstice was built and the Celebration was built, not to mention advances in technology.

I disagree. It is 100% apples to apples and a fair comparison. Retrofitting current wifi technology to an airport, mall, college campus, or older cruise ship is only difficult if there is unwillingness to provide it.

[Charles4515]

27 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

I don't mean the following in a disrespectful way, I'm just pointing out he has nearly a half-million subscribers,

Really? I never saw him before and YouTube has never recommended him to me. 

[prmssk]

5 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

Reportedly the Beyond has been greatly throttled down

 

 

 

I agree some throttling is likely happening.  Reports of the same are coming from Royal Caribbean including the first ship they tested it on.

 

But that thread includes at least one report with great speeds on the Beyond.  And I've seen other reports with great speeds on that ship.  So I'm not sure exactly what is happening on the Beyond.

[prmssk]

7 minutes ago, RichYak said:

I disagree. It is 100% apples to apples and a fair comparison. Retrofitting current wifi technology to an airport, mall, college campus, or older cruise ship is only difficult if there is unwillingness to provide it.

Your expectations of both ships can be the same and maybe should be the same.  I get your point there.  But it is not the same cost and time when it comes to retrofitting an old ship vs. putting good internet to start with on a new ship.  And we are still in the rollout process so there hasn't been a lot of time yet since RCG started putting Starlink on their ships.

[Charles4515]

9 minutes ago, RichYak said:

I disagree. It is 100% apples to apples and a fair comparison. Retrofitting current wifi technology to an airport, mall, college campus, or older cruise ship is only difficult if there is unwillingness to provide it.

For sure. When they put in Xcelerate on Celebrity and Voom on RC they did not retrofit the older ships. They just renamed it Xcelerate and Voom and the speed on Summit for example stayed the same. Only the newer ships got the real Xcelerate. 

[NutsAboutGolf]

1 minute ago, prmssk said:

I agree some throttling is likely happening.  Reports of the same are coming from Royal Caribbean including the first ship they tested it on.

 

But that thread includes at least one report with great speeds on the Beyond.  And I've seen other reports with great speeds on that ship.  So I'm not sure exactly what is happening on the Beyond.

Who knows, perhaps it’s because Capt Kate is at the helm and X corporate wants her to produce and upload social media content

 

This is the point of the OPs video, that cruise lines are reducing speed most likely to save money 

[keesar]

24 minutes ago, prmssk said:

I agree some throttling is likely happening.  Reports of the same are coming from Royal Caribbean including the first ship they tested it on.

 

But that thread includes at least one report with great speeds on the Beyond.  And I've seen other reports with great speeds on that ship.  So I'm not sure exactly what is happening on the Beyond.

 

We were just on the Beyond and the Internet was disappointing.  We had both the Basic  and Premium.  On the Basic, we could send emails as long as there were no attachments.  On the Premium, sometimes we could send emails with photos and other times we could not.  On the Premium, FaceTime was really spotty and disappointing.  I am glad I did not pay $$$ for the Premium.

[NutsAboutGolf]

35 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

Really? I never saw him before and YouTube has never recommended him to me. 

 

Yes.  His channel is predominately cruises but not exclusively.  He seems to love Carnival despite cruising on most cruise lines including Viking and US river boat cruising

 

[Charles4515]

2 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

Yes.  His channel is predominately cruises but not exclusively.  He seems to love Carnival despite cruising on most cruise lines including Viking and US river boat cruising

I guess the YouTube algorithm knows I am not interested in Carnival. YouTube has never recomended his channel to me. I cruised on Carnival a couple of times. About fifteen years ago and then again ten years ago and did not care for either experience. The second time someone was adament they had improved. After being fooled into it the second time I never considered it again. 

[DaKahuna]

These are not the speeds I get at home but they are more than adequate for streaming Netflix. 
 

This was just testing while sitting on my balcony off the coast of Cuba on Celebrity Millennium