Not long ago, a reader posted this comment:
Why do cruise ships continue to rape you for an internet connection? It’s available on airplanes and even in McDonalds for free or a very reasonable price!
I can understand that reader’s frustration, though I probably would not have expressed the sentiment the same way. Still, I have to agree that cruise lines have much ground to cover to catch up to our modern lifestyles. In fact, the few complaints I hear when I am on board ships are usually about internet services, either too costly or too slow.
Cruise lines can do something about both. To be fair, internet does cost cruise lines a bundle. I talked with a technician on one ship who told me that satellite internet services, typically provided by MTN Satellite Communications, cost his cruise line $80,000 per month per ship for download speeds of 1mb per second. Suddenly, I feel a lot better about the cost of my AT&T service!
Cruise lines can slice that monthly fee in half by opting for slower service, .5 mb per second, but that does a disservice to the passengers. There are also options for cruise lines to purchase faster service, and of course, there are new technologies being develop.
MTN recently announced new technology that will deliver entertainment and news programming, as well other content, to personal mobile devices anywhere on the ship. We’ll report on this new service once we experience it.
Seabourn offers an unlimited package that allows users to pay a flat fee, $239 for seven days, or $399 for longer cruises. One thing we like about the Seabourn plan is that you don’t have to log on and log off each time you want to use the internet, and it can be shared on multiple devices, but only one device at a time.
There are ships that offer free internet, river cruisers, such as AmaWaterways and Viking River Cruises, and some cruise lines offer free internet time for their loyal, repeat guests.
What are your internet needs while at sea? Or do you fully unplug?
Since bandwidth on ships is limited I think free, unlimited internet is a really bad idea. You think it’s slow now, wait until everyone on board can just keep their device logged on all day. Talk about slow! Remember the ship buys a certain amount of bandwidth and every person who logs on takes a slice out of that. The fist person on can have it all but when the next person logs on it gets cut in half, then thirds, then quarters. If 100 people are on each only gets 1/100 of the max bandwidth and that’s why it’s so slow.
So true Rod. If it was free it certainly would mean more people using up the bandwith. Keeping it at a cost does end up limiting the amount of people using it. Very good point.