Welcome to the Royal Caribbean blog podcast, a weekly look into the world of Royal Caribbean cruising.

I'm your host, Matt Hachberg, and this is episode number 43.

One big push Royal Caribbean is going with these days is providing internet access while at sea.

Some people find it really useful while others prefer to stay unconnected.

Regardless, more internet access is available to cruise guests all the time.

And this week, we're going to look at how you can get connected while at sea and see what the future may hold as well.

Here we go.

Getting on the internet while at sea is something that's been a part of the cruise experience.

I'd say for the last 10 to 20 years for a lot of guests.

It's become a way not just getting in touch with friends and family at home, but also a means of sharing your Royal Caribbean vacation experience with everyone.

Real Caribbean has also been seeing Wi-Fi as an ever-increasing source of onboard revenue, so they've certainly been doing a lot more to get internet

connectivity to their cruise ships so they can increase said revenue.

Originally, Royal Caribbean ships only provided really spotty Wi-Fi service in select

locations on the ships, and really the speeds were really quite slow.

Slow internet speeds have really less to do with Royal Caribbean, and more to do how satellite

internet technology

works.

So without getting too geeky, here's how it basically works.

On land, there are so many connection points that draw your computer into the worldwide web,

so there's never an issue with speed because you have really a direct connection via land,

via pipe, to the backbone of the internet.

But at sea, the only way to get internet access is to beam a signal up to a satellite,

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