WIFI on a cruise ship

[Donald]

I am on a cruise ship (Princess) and during some down time I used WIFIMAN to look at the WIFI. So they have WIFI 6 from Cisco access points but they are all on channel 1 or 11. None on channel 6. So more contention on channel 1 and 11 than needs to be if it was split between 1, 6, 11.

I have Unifi equipment and it will figure things out and at midnight will make channel changes across various access points to end up with less contention especially on the 2.4Ghz frequency.

I got to believe Cisco has the option to adjust channels automatically to reduce contention.

 

[tmorris1]

It is a ship in the ocean. There is no contention or change in WIFI traffic once they are under way.

 

[Owen Lucas]

Are you a passenger on the ship or doing IT work? If as a passenger, you can adjust the ships Wi-Fi settings with your equipment?

 

[Donald]

It is a ship in the ocean. There is no contention or change in WIFI traffic once they are under way.

They have probably a 100+ access points so they get in the way of each other.

 

[Donald]

Are you a passenger on the ship or doing IT work? If as a passenger, you can adjust the ships Wi-Fi settings with your equipment?

Passenger. WIFIMAN just allows one to see what is out there. Not make any changes.

 

[tmorris1]

They have probably a 100+ access points so they get in the way of each other.

Usually they are set to very low power so they don't. You don't want each AP to have that much power with that many.

 

[Marcozi]

Shipboard WIFI relies on satellite communications when the ship is at sea. My wife and I took a Holland-American Line cruise around the southern part of south America in early 2020. the WIFI was sloooow!

 

[Donald]

Shipboard WIFI relies on satellite communications when the ship is at sea. My wife and I took a Holland-American Line cruise around the southern part of south America in early 2020. the WIFI was sloooow!

The ships are moving to StarLink but not sure if most cruise ships are there yet.

 

[Donald]

But back to my original post. Whatever the power why not split across 1 & 6 & 11. Rather than just 1 & 11. Or let the management software decide.

 

[CDX825]

Wonder if channel 6 is being used for something else you can't see?

 

[tmorris1]

Wonder if channel 6 is being used for something else you can't see?

You would see it if something was transmitting.

 

[CKN]

Shipboard WIFI relies on satellite communications when the ship is at sea. My wife and I took a Holland-American Line cruise around the southern part of south America in early 2020. the WIFI was sloooow!

Took a 74 day cruise around South America-to Antarctica on a HAL ship six months or so ago. While the wifi was indeed slow-I was able to receive and make phone calls (most of the time) and post to social media. The wifi was spotty while cruising Antarctica-for obvious reason.

 

[andrew_j]

74 day cruise ^^^^^?????

 

[mk378]

What model APs are they? The new Cisco system selects channels automatically, you have to dig quite in to some manual tinkering to override a channel choice.

The 2.4 band is about dead, practically every phone tablet or laptop on the market now supports 5 GHz. I have set up 5 GHz only networks and the only person to complain had what must be the first 4G flip phone ever made. It was about 10 years old. The new Cisco APs allow the 2.4 radio to switch over to become a second 5 GHz radio.

 

[CKN]

74 day cruise ^^^^^?????

Yes.......

 

[cptbarkey]

Yes.......

thats alot of

guy's burgers.

just kidding

 

[PandaBear]

Wonder if channel 6 is being used for something else you can't see?

This is likely the answer. First of all if the ship's wifi work then they are all good as long as the satellite is the bottleneck instead of the 2.4GHz they are using. The way they layout the wifi AP along the ship you would likely reuse the same channel 1 and 11 enough to overlap and roam, maybe they can bump the power enough to cover a wider range but will make channel 6 unusable? maybe they use the frequency around channel 6 for other 2.4GHz equipment not on wifi? Maybe they have a hidden wifi on channel 6 for their own internal network?

The reason only 1,6,11 are usable is because power in the spec would encroach between 2-5 and 7-10, so if they bump the power of the AP out of spec then even 6 would be unusable.

 

[thastinger]

I am on a cruise ship (Princess) and during some down time I used WIFIMAN to look at the WIFI. So they have WIFI 6 from Cisco access points but they are all on channel 1 or 11. None on channel 6. So more contention on channel 1 and 11 than needs to be if it was split between 1, 6, 11.

I have Unifi equipment and it will figure things out and at midnight will make channel changes across various access points to end up with less contention especially on the 2.4Ghz frequency.

I got to believe Cisco has the option to adjust channels automatically to reduce contention.

They most likely have some other equipment on the ship that would be negatively impacted by the use of any other channels. I'm sure they conduct EMI surveys and deconflict all the onboard equipment to operate well together...and I'm sure that results in operating frequency assignments for every piece of equipment on that ship..

 

[Owen Lucas]

If it's not too much to ask, can you upload a screen shot of an internet speed test? Very curious to see satellite speeds and ping time!

 

[Donald]

If it's not too much to ask, can you upload a screen shot of an internet speed test? Very curious to see satellite speeds and ping time!

Sorry - I am too value thinking (cheap) to buy their WIFI package. I use the local WIFI to the ship for dinner reservations and cell service in port. The price for 2 devices for 2 weeks was something crazy around $400 to $500.