Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 210 posts

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#191

Post by emchammer »

jasoncartwright wrote: post #11
isawczuk wrote: post #8

I was watching some cruise crew videos, and it turns out their biggest expense is internet. I'm curious why they don’t just install Starlink to cut costs and maybe sell to guests some "piracy" internet?

Pirate seaborne internet has been tried. "A Navy officer is demoted after sneaking a satellite dish onto a warship to get the internet" https://apnews.com/article/navy-illegal-wireless-internet-53... https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2024/09/03/how-navy...

How in the bloody hell do you install a Starlink on a submarine?

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#192

Post by ceejayoz »

jiveturkey wrote: post #158
baq wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cruise ship shouldn’t have any issues with having 10 or 20 terminals installed and the clear skies in all directions could mean each has its own bird.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/1crxkx9/starlink_... Apparently a mid-size ship will have 12 terminals. That same thread talks about other ship sizes but not if they have more terminals. I still submit that the pricing is entirely a function of what the market will bear, and not the cost of the service.

Those 12 terminals still need to talk to satellites. Only a certain number will be in reach, and if the ship is significantly out to sea, those satellites will need to pass data along to others to reach the ground.

We know a densely populated land area can saturate the satellites overhead; it's part of the reason we don't use Starlink in, say, NYC. The same math applies to a thousand cruise ship passengers trying to use it at the same time.

(It will absolutely be much better than the previous state-of-the-art, though.)

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#193

Post by vntok »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41
Scarblac wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But still, Google says there's about 30 million cruise passengers per year, or less than 0.4% of the world. Close.

> Google says there's about 30 million cruise passengers per year, or less than 0.4% of the world. Close. By the same math owning a pet tortoise is something of a 0.1% game.

Well yes, having both the time and budget to properly care for a pet tortoise is a very exclusive hobby. Tortoises can live 50+ years, require space, a daily ose of fresh natural-grown veggies, and are prone to respiratory infections often requiring costly antibiotic injections.

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#194

Post by jimmydddd »

emchammer wrote: post #191
jasoncartwright wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pirate seaborne internet has been tried. "A Navy officer is demoted after sneaking a satellite dish onto a warship to get the internet" https://apnews.com/article/navy-illegal-wireless-internet-53... https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2024/09/03/how-navy...

How in the bloody hell do you install a Starlink on a submarine?

---The Starlink dish was secretly installed on the Independence Class vessel’s weather deck, where it was relatively out of view. The network was initially named “Stinky”, but it was later renamed to appear to be a wireless printer – despite there being no such devices aboard.

---The Starlink dish wasn’t discovered until a civilian technician, installing a Starshield satellite communications system, noted the device and reported it to a senior crew member.

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#195

Post by dylan604 »

RajT88 wrote: post #190
dylan604 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but even HN peeps need a vacay

Well, I don't hack wifi networks as part of my day job. I'm an older dude, and no longer find talking to strangers all that fun. I like nature and the outdoors, but that can be admired only from a great distance until you make port. Going fishing off a moving cruise ship will end your vacation rather quickly (aside from not being feasible - you're going too fast for anything which is catchable on light tackle). I lov…

clearly, we're all free to do whatever for our precious time off, but you just listed a whole lot of things that you don't like to do yet you paid for it anyways. again, we all like different things, but i'd prefer to spend money doing things I enjoy, but you do you

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#196

Post by dylan604 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #180
dylan604 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what exactly would this be breaking? it's an analysis of logs, not providing access to services.

> what exactly would this be breaking? Whatever those nine trillion bugs the developer is supposed to be working on are up to.

they're clearly not fixing those either, so yet again, what's being broken that wasn't already broken?

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#197

Post by blacksmith_tb »

okdood64 wrote: post #118
bredren wrote: post #17

I used a travel router on my recent trip to Argentina and found it quite useful. It will be a permanent part of my travel kit. Some cooler uses: - streaming HDR video from closed MacBook running Amphetamine to Vision Pro via Moonlink - Having a working HomePod mini in the hotel room. The hotel internet did not like multiple devices off the router. It didn’t reject it outright but it throttled or nerfed it. Individual…

> travel router What's the difference between that and tethering off your phone?

Possibly ethernet from the cabin wall to the travel router? I haven't ever taken a cruise, but I could imagine that, some hotels have ethernet in their rooms.

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#198

Post by keyringlight »

MBCook wrote: post #164
fn-mote wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the unusual number of free-internet activation attached to your booking id, and either give your room a visit to knock it off Cruise lines want happy customers. They aren’t going to do something to piss you off for $170.

They want money more. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a $170 fee.

I'd wonder what the costs and risks are of trying to get that $170, assuming it's one or a tiny amount of passengers compared to dozens each sailing who tell their friends. If you get someone who's got nothing better to do than argue on the topic, make you prove that the charge is justified and not just some misconfigured device that "didn't go online because I only use it for reading ebooks, honest", then it could get ugly including legal or press routes.

On a small scale for a cruise liner scaled operation I'd be prepared to say "huh, that's odd" or turn a blind eye to just one.

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#199

Post by noboostforyou »

sodafountan wrote: post #181
ryandrake wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, I'd think something like onboard Internet is something set up once for the ship, and then basically forgotten about as long as the overall revenue is above some "reasonable" threshold given the number of passengers. Ain't no security team sitting there monitoring user registration metrics in real-time looking for fraud. At best, they might pull logs every quarter to look for vulnerabilities like this to close.

I haven't been on a cruise in a long time, does anyone know if there are on-board IT people? Might be an interesting job if I ever get bored again.

I was on a somewhat fancy cruise a short while ago (Celebrity, fwiw) and they had a small live tv production crew that would film around the ship broadcast daily events and stuff on the ship's tv channel. The live shows also had a number of a/v tech crew people so there certainly are some IT folks employed on the ships while it embarks.

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#200

Post by emchammer »

jimmydddd wrote: post #194
emchammer wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How in the bloody hell do you install a Starlink on a submarine?

---The Starlink dish was secretly installed on the Independence Class vessel’s weather deck, where it was relatively out of view. The network was initially named “Stinky”, but it was later renamed to appear to be a wireless printer – despite there being no such devices aboard. ---The Starlink dish wasn’t discovered until a civilian technician, installing a Starshield satellite communications system, noted the device…

Arg, thanks. I literally read that, but there was too much advertising on that site. Maybe the Navy needs to provide Wi-Fi to sailors if it means that much for their morale. And maybe consumer endpoint security needs to be so rock-solid that a sailor can trust their phone/laptop on a voyage.
Post reply on HN