[ih] Internet at Sea

[Karl Auerbach]

Some years back (circa 2010?) we also took a cruise and were annoyed by 
how slow was access to the net.

So we made a video about it:

https://vimeo.com/815203660

         --karl--

On 10/3/25 2:05 AM, Michael Grant via Internet-history wrote:
> From "Jack Haverty via Internet-history" 
> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
>> Recently I heard anecdotal reports that the Internet on cruise ships 
>> works well - but is reliable only when the ship is far out to sea. 
>> When it's in port, or even just approaching port, teleconferencing is 
>> unreliable.   My speculation is that traffic loads when near a port 
>> include all the land-based users and the network may be overwhelmed.  
>> But that's just speculation, I have no data.
>>
> I have spent quite a bit of time as passenger on cruise ships these 
> last few years.  I don't know when the Internet started becoming 
> available on cruise ships but I first used it on-board in 2010 on 
> Holland America.  Simply put, the service was awful and expensive 
> regardless if the ship was in port or not.  It used a geostationary 
> satellite connection using a dish on a rocker under a ball.  When the 
> ship moved a lot, the internet stopped working. It was charged by the 
> minute and you had to connect like dial-up through the ship's captive 
> web portal and manually disconnect when no longer using it.  In 2010, 
> iirc, the cost was something like 50 US cents/min and you spent most 
> of your money waiting.
>
> Since then, the geostationary ship internet has gotten much better.  3 
> or 4 years ago, I was on a cruise ship which which no longer charged a 
> per minute charge but still used the similar geostationary link and 
> you still had to "log on" via a captive portal.  We were able to have 
> absolutely acceptable video calls part of the time.  I was amazed 
> because even with the delay through the geo satellite, the delay was 
> unnoticeable. I had to prove to myself using ping and traceroute that 
> we were actually using a geostationary link and not Starlink!
>
> In the last year, I have been on cruise ships that now have Starlink.  
> They have 12 stationary Starlink pizza box antennae mounted high up 
> near one of the stacks (6 on each side).  They run 12 separate 
> Starlink connections.  I am going to describe what Cunard does but I 
> suspect they are all similar.  Cunard runs a VPN which bonds together 
> the 12 connections such that if any of them goes down the packet is 
> sent out any antenna.  (I don't know which VPN they use nor do I know 
> how they bond the links, if it's round-robin or not, sorry!)  The VPN 
> is terminated in either Southampton UK or Miami Florida, US depending 
> on where the ship is (they change over midway across the Atlantic).  
> They run something like bufferbloat to share the b/w more fairly.  
> They also run a firewall where they block quite a few sites.  I have 
> had to ask them to unblock things which they have kindly done.
>
> I understand that Starlink sets the pricing on the ships and that they 
> may have installed the system for little or nothing in exchange for 
> being able to capture that market.  I don't know for sure though.  I 
> do know a lot of cruise ships are installing Starlink now.  My only 
> gripe is they charge per device and it's 2x if you want 2 devices, so 
> for my wife and I, if we both just want to be able to use whatsapp to 
> find one another on-board, it's well overpriced.  They charge about 
> USD $25/day per device and have a "special" price where for the cost 
> of 2 devices you can have up to 4.
>
> The ships do not disable the satellite internet near ports.  They 
> continue to use the satellite network even in port.  This is likely 
> because if they were to somehow connect the ship to the port's wifi 
> they would quickly saturate it.  It's also likely because several of 
> the ship's systems use their satellite internet and for security 
> reasons they want that going over their VPN.  I have not noticed much 
> difference sitting in port using the satellite internet than at sea, 
> if anything, it's better since many people are off the ship.  I 
> suspect what Jack may be referring to is when approaching port people 
> saturate the ship's internet as they prepare to disembark, like doing 
> research for things to do or coordinating with friends and family and 
> such.  I have my doubts it has much to do with interference other than 
> maybe if it's Starlink that the ship starts to compete with other 
> Starlink users on land using the same space based resource in the sky.
>
> Internet in the cabins has also gotten a lot better over the years.  
> Cunard has installed Aruba (HP) APs in all the hallways and cabins.  
> Rather unfortunately one cruise I was on, the wifi in my cabin would 
> literally seize up.  I spent quite a bit of time tracking it down to a 
> firmware issue that Aruba had issued a patch for but unfortunately it 
> was not possible to update the firmware at sea because they would have 
> had to take the entire ship off-line while they did it so it would 
> have to wait until next time the ship went in for maintenance.
>
> Every cruise ship I have been on in the last 10-15 years also had 
> separate mobile phone and data available via Maritime 
> Telecommunications Network (MTN) or other similar companies.  This is 
> only turned on when at sea.  At port, they turn off the maritime 
> telecom network and you are expected to roam on to the local carrier.
>
> I am fairly certain this uses a separate geostationary satellite and 
> separate dish-on-rocker-in-ball antenna from the internet 
> connection.   Receiving text messages (SMS) has always been free for 
> me and that's good because the number of times that's saved me when 
> on-board and needing to go through some 2FA to get into something has 
> been plenty.  However, making and receiving calls, sending texts, and 
> especially using the mobile data is scarily expensive.  I have talked 
> with plenty of passengers who had no idea and those who had used it 
> unwittingly on previous cruises only to gotten home to $1000+ phone 
> bills!  Unfortunately, unless you are a little bit savvy, it's all to 
> easy to just use it because it works.
>
> Ships also seem to have Inmarsat and/or Iridium phones on board but as 
> far as I am aware this is  not hooked up to some general system for 
> the public.  It seems like this is backup or ship to shore coms for 
> the bridge.
>
> All of my experience above is solely from my experiences as a 
> passenger. Everything I know here is just from chatting up tech people 
> on board ships and my own probing around with tools like ping and 
> traceroute.  Unfortunately, I never worked in the maritime or 
> satellite networking industry myself.
>
> I'd be interested in hearing some of the technical details if someone 
> on this list knows more.  It would also be interesting to see a thread 
> of the history of internet on air crafts if someone knows about that.
>
> Michael Grant