Passengers on select Royal Caribbean cruises will soon be able to enjoy four times faster internet than before, as the technology has just been updated.
According to cruiseandferry.net, two ships have had their Wi-Fi service upgraded: Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas. O3b Networks have updated the antenna arrays onboard the ships and paired them with new medium-Earth-orbit satellites. These satellites were first designed to bring the internet to people in emerging markets.
Travellers are soon able to enjoy internet speeds as fast as they’d get at home, if not faster. This is because O3b has managed to reduce the amount of satellite latency. Before the new tech, latency was around 750 milliseconds, this is now down to 140 milliseconds, reports asiatraveltips.com.
Adam Goldstein, president and CEO at Royal Caribbean International, explains that it wasn’t easy to boost the speed of its Wi-Fi.
“Vacations aren’t just about getting away from it all for modern families anymore,” he states. “A great vacation today also means keeping friends and family updated over social media and enjoying downtime with streaming content played on tablets and phones, not just movies on TV in your stateroom.”
He adds that the difference in speed is so dramatic that returning guests will be “blown away” by it.
