Sharing internet with a travel router

[joydivision84]

On 10/2/2023 at 6:19 PM, RocketMan275 said:

I think some are using semantics to defend stealing.

If you want two or more to simulaneously access the internet, pay for two or more.  Otherwise it's just like sharing a drink package.

Regarding semantics and the definition of stealing, on some level, at least philosophically anyway, charging $200+ per person for internet that's only fast enough to check email and browse websites could be considered stealing. 

 

This guy has absolutely stuck to the terms as only one of his devices is connected to NCL's WiFi, his own device is broadcasting it's own signal and is not drawing anymore bandwidth from the source than any one else on board with the basic package. 

 

If it was the case using this set up was drawing way more bandwidth then you'd have a point, but the speed will only ever be determined by whatever signal NCL sends to his router, and that won't increase using a travel router.

 

[ChiefMateJRK]

I'm pretty certain that an item has to have some intrinsic value to be "stolen."  NCL's craptastic wifi?  🤣

[RocketMan275]

32 minutes ago, joydivision84 said:

Regarding semantics and the definition of stealing, on some level, at least philosophically anyway, charging $200+ per person for internet that's only fast enough to check email and browse websites could be considered stealing. 

 

This guy has absolutely stuck to the terms as only one of his devices is connected to NCL's WiFi, his own device is broadcasting it's own signal and is not drawing anymore bandwidth from the source than any one else on board with the basic package. 

 

If it was the case using this set up was drawing way more bandwidth then you'd have a point, but the speed will only ever be determined by whatever signal NCL sends to his router, and that won't increase using a travel router.

 

So, you're saying this is a form of social justice?

[cruiser2015]

1 hour ago, RocketMan275 said:

So, you're saying this is a form of social justice?

I think they are saying that, strictly speaking, use of this device meets the NCL guidelines.

Therefore, not stealing.

But, the fact that the user is able to leverage something in their favor, is a karmic payback of sorts, against the exhorbitent rates for, in may cases, very poor service.

[blutfort]

4 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

I'm pretty certain that an item has to have some intrinsic value to be "stolen."  NCL's craptastic wifi?  🤣

IANAL, but I believe that theft requires 'denial of use' of 'property'.  I had some IP 'not stolen' from me once and during the litigation it was clearly pointed out the copyright violation is not theft, regardless of the legality/illegality of it

.

[joydivision84]

4 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

So, you're saying this is a form of social justice?

No I wouldn't really go that far, but I'd definitely say it's a fair (and smart) solution to help out his family in a situation where one is inherently being ripped off. Obviously people have different wealth levels, 200 bucks for Internet is probably peanuts to some people, but whichever way you angle it I'd wager the costs involved for NCL are way, way lower than that, on a per person basis anyway.

 

I'll be honest, if I had a wife and how many kids there's no way I could afford $1000 for everyone to be able to check their email, so sometimes in life it's ok to sit back, respect a smart solution and pat the little guy on the back. God knows the working man and woman get bent over enough in modern society by corporations and the super wealthy. 

[RocketMan275]

4 minutes ago, joydivision84 said:

No I wouldn't really go that far, but I'd definitely say it's a fair (and smart) solution to help out his family in a situation where one is inherently being ripped off. Obviously people have different wealth levels, 200 bucks for Internet is probably peanuts to some people, but whichever way you angle it I'd wager the costs involved for NCL are way, way lower than that, on a per person basis anyway.

 

I'll be honest, if I had a wife and how many kids there's no way I could afford $1000 for everyone to be able to check their email, so sometimes in life it's ok to sit back, respect a smart solution and pat the little guy on the back. God knows the working man and woman get bent over enough in modern society by corporations and the super wealthy. 

If you can't afford to pay for something, then do without.

You're making essetially the same argument made by those looting stores, we can't afford what we want so we'll just steal it.  Besides the corporations have money and we don't.

The free at sea comes with enough connect time to check your email so there's something else going on.

[RD64]

10 minutes ago, joydivision84 said:

No I wouldn't really go that far, but I'd definitely say it's a fair (and smart) solution to help out his family in a situation where one is inherently being ripped off. Obviously people have different wealth levels, 200 bucks for Internet is probably peanuts to some people, but whichever way you angle it I'd wager the costs involved for NCL are way, way lower than that, on a per person basis anyway.

 

I'll be honest, if I had a wife and how many kids there's no way I could afford $1000 for everyone to be able to check their email, so sometimes in life it's ok to sit back, respect a smart solution and pat the little guy on the back. God knows the working man and woman get bent over enough in modern society by corporations and the super wealthy. 

Ripped off? They accepted the terms and conditions in the first place - so at the time did not think it was a “ripoff”. Their blatant promotion of this will eventually get it shut down - then of course people will complain that they are no longer able to take advantage of this loophole.

[joydivision84]

8 minutes ago, RD64 said:

Ripped off? They accepted the terms and conditions in the first place - so at the time did not think it was a “ripoff”. Their blatant promotion of this will eventually get it shut down - then of course people will complain that they are no longer able to take advantage of this loophole.

What terms? Aren't the terms one device. Once again then it goes back to interpretation. Either way if something like this went to court I can guarantee the terms are almost certainly being followed in the most black and white meaning of the contract.

 

The irony is that people who make WiFi hotspots off their phone/tablet/laptop, which going by this forum is way more rife that what this guy is doing with a router, is most likely closer to breaking the terms.

 

Then you've got end user device leeching off another end user device and so on, where at least with a router it's a middle ground before the end user device(s). If that makes any sense.

 

Regarding OP If he was getting increased bandwidth then it would get murkier and go further into the weeds of what is the service inherently, bandwidth or service as a whole, if the WiFi signal is the service, or is the internet itself a service? Almost gets existencial.

 

Maybe this will be something that NCL will look into off the back off the thread, it's definitely always a bad idea sharing 'hacks' like stuff like this, as it usually just leads to bad ends for customers, and especially OP! Although no doubt the amount of people who actually go to this level to get internet access is probably very, very small indeed. I know it's be too much of a pain in the arse for me for sure. 

 

At the end of the day people can play white knights for large companies all they want, you do you, I'm more apathetic to this. It's just a guy playing with like 5mb internet, I know I don't care. Plus anyone comparing it to sharing drinks packages etc, yeah, well I'd lean heavily into that being a way more overt and stingy operation, definitely shitty, especially for everyone else who pays for drinks packages. 

[ChiefMateJRK]

38 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

If you can't afford to pay for something, then do without.

I can easily afford to pay for NCL internet, but I don't.  It's not because I "steal it."  I simply don't use any more that my free minutes because a) I don't go on vacation to have screen time and b) NCL's internet sucks so bad that 150 minutes of it is enough frustration for anybody.  

[jules181]

I have a GL-iNet Beryl that I travel with.

 

It is fantastic for the cruise as it allows me to chromecast to the TV (which is next to impossible otherwise)

 

At the end of the day, you are restricted to single device bandwidth caps. If you want to share your very low bandwidth amongst multiple devices, more power to you. The internet just gets worse and worse the more devices you ad. 

 

But 100% agree you are accessing the NCL external gateway through a single device as per the terms and conditions. If that single device happens to be a private wifi network, then so be it. 🤷‍♂️

 

NCL is very quick to bring up the terms and conditions when it benefits them. Contra proferentem.  

[MkeCruzn]

A couple of observations, not getting into legal/moral issues. Apologies if this turns too geeky.

1. For the travel router to work, you need an Ethernet port, right? Using the wi-fi connection for both the WAN and LAN would cut the speed in half, just like a wi-fi repeater. If NCL cared about people bringing routers, they could disable the Ethernet ports in the cabins and force everyone onto the ship's wi-fi network.

2. My last unlimited wi-fi package allowed three different devices to connect through my account, though I could use only one at a time. I was able to authenticate my phone, laptop, and iPad without doing much other than logging in/out. When my wife wanted to use the wi-fi, I just had to remove a device so she could log in. When she was done, I just removed hers and added mine back in. Inconvenient? Maybe a bit. Limiting? Yes and no. I just had to discipline myself and use only one device at a time.

3. MAC spoofing probably would not work, since the system knew what OS version, device type, etc. was connecting. I suspect that the same MAC address with different details might appear as different devices, but I have no way of testing this. I did have to remove a "device" if I used a different browser on the laptop to log in, as it thought the computer was not the same.

[jules181]

9 minutes ago, MkeCruzn said:

A couple of observations, not getting into legal/moral issues. Apologies if this turns too geeky.

1. For the travel router to work, you need an Ethernet port, right? Using the wi-fi connection for both the WAN and LAN would cut the speed in half, just like a wi-fi repeater. If NCL cared about people bringing routers, they could disable the Ethernet ports in the cabins and force everyone onto the ship's wi-fi network.

2. My last unlimited wi-fi package allowed three different devices to connect through my account, though I could use only one at a time. I was able to authenticate my phone, laptop, and iPad without doing much other than logging in/out. When my wife wanted to use the wi-fi, I just had to remove a device so she could log in. When she was done, I just removed hers and added mine back in. Inconvenient? Maybe a bit. Limiting? Yes and no. I just had to discipline myself and use only one device at a time.

3. MAC spoofing probably would not work, since the system knew what OS version, device type, etc. was connecting. I suspect that the same MAC address with different details might appear as different devices, but I have no way of testing this. I did have to remove a "device" if I used a different browser on the laptop to log in, as it thought the computer was not the same.

With regards to point #1 the travel routers are designed to both connect to wifi and broadcast it. I have never connected via ethernet on the cruise ship but I have in hotels and other locations.  If it were the case that bandwidth is cut in half, and I don't believe it is, with the amount of bandwidth modern wifi has, you definitely wouldn't notice it on the cruise ship.  Your bottleneck is the connection to the external internet. 

 

On point 2, we'd trade off devices when outside of the stateroom. But when in the stateroom, everyone could connect via the router.  Honestly, outside of the stateroom, was very easy to disconnect.  Listen to downloaded podcasts and read downloaded books. I found it most impactful in the stateroom as that's when when we wanted to connect and touch base with those at home. 

 

I still view the cruise as a way to disconnect, however I like to stay abreast of the news while I travel. 

[UKstages]

19 hours ago, joydivision84 said:

It's just a guy playing with like 5mb internet,

 

what sort of fantasy world are we living in when throughput on NCL is as high as 5 Mbps?

 

i have never seen this, even at 2 or 3 am when, presumably, most people are sleeping and not accessing the internet.

[hallux]

15 minutes ago, MkeCruzn said:

1. For the travel router to work, you need an Ethernet port, right? Using the wi-fi connection for both the WAN and LAN would cut the speed in half, just like a wi-fi repeater. If NCL cared about people bringing routers, they could disable the Ethernet ports in the cabins and force everyone onto the ship's wi-fi network.

No.  Travel routers take an existing WiFi connection and then broadcast their own network.  To do that they need two WiFi radios so it would not cut the speed in half.  Realistically, though, the internet speed on a ship is slow enough that such halving of WiFi throughput won't be noticeable.

 

2 minutes ago, UKstages said:

what sort of fantasy world are we living in when throughput on NCL is as high as 5 Mbps?

I guess I was in a fantasy world when I grabbed this screenshot on my cruise on the Escape earlier this year - 

[schmoopie17]

On 10/2/2023 at 5:17 PM, RRSeeker said:

 

The drink package is whole different type of purchase and can only be used by one person so yes, getting drinks for someone else without the package is a form of stealing but definitely not equal.

I recently saw a post (name withheld to protect the guilty) where he/she (again, being ambiguous) said that he/she did not have the drink package but made friends with someone who had the package *wink/wink*

 

I saw nobody reprimand/scold/berate that person for stealing or violating the rules. But apparently this router subject is so egregious that the holier-than-thou police are all over it. There's an old saying, "Pick your battles". This battle is not a hill worth dying on. I say "Bravo" to those smart enough and tech-savvy enough to find a workaround, without "stealing" anything from anybody.

 

Edited October 9, 2023 by schmoopie17

[ltp579]

19 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

If you can't afford to pay for something, then do without.

You're making essetially the same argument made by those looting stores, we can't afford what we want so we'll just steal it.  Besides the corporations have money and we don't.

The free at sea comes with enough connect time to check your email so there's something else going on.

I don't think anyone is talking about outright stealing wifi. Maybe some people are hoping to get away with paying for a somewhat less expensive package. I'm planning on doing this on my next cruise because I travel with multiple devices (phone, ipad, work laptop, etc.) even if I only use one at a time. I don't have the luxury at this point in my life of being unreachable. The job that affords me the income and flexibility to occasionally go on cruises also expects me to be available for a question or quick email if needed. On a cruise last year (not NCL) it was incredibly onerous to log out of one device and into another. It was a frustrating hassle and I spent more time than I wanted connecting to the internet for what I hoped would be a quick check in. For $40 I can (hopefully) have my devices connect more seamlessly, have a more relaxing trip with less irritation around the bad internet I paid a fortune for, and overall less time dealing with my devices. Is it possible that at some point my phone will still be downloading a podcast while I'm checking in with work and technically I had two devices connected for a few seconds. Maybe. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, I don't think I'm looting Norwegian's coffers if it happens, and I don't think I'm violating the terms of what I paid for. But I certainly could be wrong and clearly other people will feel differently.

[dbrown84]

8 minutes ago, schmoopie17 said:

I recently saw a post (name withheld to protect the guilty) where he/she (again, being ambiguous) said that he/she did not have the drink package but made friends with someone who had the package *wink/wink*

 

I saw nobody reprimand/scold/berate that person for stealing or violating the rules. But apparently this router subject is so egregious that the holier-than-thou police are all over it. There's an old saying, "Pick your battles". This battle is not a hill worth dying on. I say "Bravo" to those smart enough and tech-savvy enough to find a workaround, without "stealing" anything from anybody.

 

I'm totally surprised the drink package police didn't jump all over this person.  That subject usually gets them all riled up.  Much more so than this wifi post.....but let's see how many pages this wifi post gets to :)

[dbrown84]

2 hours ago, jules181 said:

I have a GL-iNet Beryl that I travel with.

 

It is fantastic for the cruise as it allows me to chromecast to the TV (which is next to impossible otherwise)

 

At the end of the day, you are restricted to single device bandwidth caps. If you want to share your very low bandwidth amongst multiple devices, more power to you. The internet just gets worse and worse the more devices you ad. 

 

But 100% agree you are accessing the NCL external gateway through a single device as per the terms and conditions. If that single device happens to be a private wifi network, then so be it. 🤷‍♂️

 

NCL is very quick to bring up the terms and conditions when it benefits them. Contra proferentem.  

question for you.... what do you have physically connected to the TV to chromecast to?  You have a dongle?  If yes, then the HDMI ports on the TV are active?  This sounds like a great use for a travel router.  I don't spend a lot of time in my cabin, but when I do I quickly get tired of the shows they have on repeat.

[ctlyf]

I realize this is an NCL board, but routers are prohibited on Carnival... surprising that NCL does not currently prohibit, but maybe because FAS is restricted to 150 minutes per person. I've heard warnings about being sure to log off your device so I'm not sure how you do that on a router 🤔.

[UKstages]

34 minutes ago, hallux said:

I guess I was in a fantasy world when I grabbed this screenshot on my cruise on the Escape earlier this year - 

 

no, i'm sure you weren't. but did you buy a lottery ticket when you hit shore?

 

my speeds, and i'm sure i could find photos somewhere if i were motivated to dig them up, are consistently well under 5.0 mbps. usually somewhere around the mid 2.0s, but often in fact under 2.0 mbps. and it wasn't appreciably better the one time i ordered the premium "streaming" service.

 

i sail on NCL a fair amount... two to four cruises a year, lately. i'm sapphire. i'm a fan. but can we agree that NCL internet, by and large, sucks? that it's among the worst in the industry? (somebody upthread defined it as "craptastic.") can we agree that generally NCL wifi has slow speeds and lots of dropped connections? the fact that you were able to get a speed of 5.82 mbps at one point in time doesn't really prove much. the fact that 5.0 mbps is a baseline for acceptability, rather than mediocrity says a great deal about just how bad the product is.

 

13 minutes ago, dbrown84 said:

I'm totally surprised the drink package police didn't jump all over this person.  That subject usually gets them all riled up.  Much more so than this wifi post.....but let's see how many pages this wifi post gets to 🙂

 

you gotta click on it, to comment on it. the mention of "travel router" in the thread's title may be enough to steer people away. most people aren't tech savvy enough to understand it. many people don't understand what a router is and even more people have never renamed their router or changed the default password. threads on drinks and tips and chair hogs, however, have wide appeal. 

 

as for the overall direction of this thread... the question has been asked, is this stealing?

 

well, i think it's the wrong question. there is no denying the OP is in compliance with NCL terms. 

 

the real question that should be asked is whether or not this is ethical. a legitimate debate can be had about that.

 

 

Edited October 9, 2023 by UKstages

[dbrown84]

3 minutes ago, ctlyf said:

I realize this is an NCL board, but routers are prohibited on Carnival... surprising that NCL does not currently prohibit, but maybe because FAS is restricted to 150 minutes per person. I've heard warnings about being sure to log off your device so I'm not sure how you do that on a router 🤔.

LOL.  Are handcuffs really on the naughty list with Carnival????  There goes looking for upside down pineapples :)

[jules181]

30 minutes ago, dbrown84 said:

question for you.... what do you have physically connected to the TV to chromecast to?  You have a dongle?  If yes, then the HDMI ports on the TV are active?  This sounds like a great use for a travel router.  I don't spend a lot of time in my cabin, but when I do I quickly get tired of the shows they have on repeat.

I plug the Chromecast device into the HDMI slot on the Tv.  The key to make sure that you don't have input selection issues is to disconnect the HDMI cable in that brings the ships data feed (i.e. tv cable) and use that port. 

 

And always remember the campsite rule. When you leave, make sure it's in the same condition you found it. 

Edited October 9, 2023 by jules181

[UKstages]

15 minutes ago, dbrown84 said:

Are handcuffs really on the naughty list with Carnival????

 

handcuffs are prohibited on NCL, too, as are "leg and head restraining straps."

 

[SoloAlaska]

This might be the perfect setup for someone like me. Planning to travel and work at the same time so I could be recording with my tablet while running things in the background on my laptop.

 

I travel solo so I am not 2 people using it.