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PCD_Barb
Cruiser
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Posted: Wed Jul 2nd, 2008 03:39 pm | 1st Post |
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Has anyone ever bypassed the ship's Internet/Wifi and brought their own mobile communication system on board for satellite broadband connections to the Internet? (kimdave68; anyone?) I'm interested in knowing what product you are using and how reliable the connection is, etc.
I am a consultant and would be able to spend more time at sea if I had higher speeds to connect to my client's network. Unfortunately the ship's connections are too slow and email/phone support is not adequate.
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kimdave68
Frequent Cruiser
| Joined: | Tue Feb 20th, 2007 |
| Location: | The Engine Room |
| Posts: | 1080 |
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Posted: Tue Jul 8th, 2008 12:12 am | 2nd Post |
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Wow I don't know what happened to my post so I will try this again, Sam!
The main question on bring your own "anywhere high speed" access is how much are you or your employer/partner is willing to invest? Plan on about $50k for equipment. (Where's the heart attack emoticon?!) Yep, that's what I thought too!
There's more too. You need a clear path to the sky (will not work indoors/below deck like a cellular phone). Radomes are best mounted on a mast (stainless steel clamps seem overpriced but are designed for 135knot wind survival). Flat packs are more portable but need to be high on the ship with little around them that can block the signal from the birds. They can be mounted on a bulwark or deck. I have a magnetic flat pack that's great until I remembered that cruise ships are aluminum on the high decks. Oops! Suction cups work best on glass and polished metal so little good that does. In the end I wind up with an expensive piece of gear doing the wat-sui during the worst storms. I'm a chaser so that's what I get. Admittingly with a bodacious evil grin, I enjoy it thoroughly as a Cuban afficiando enjoys a $700 stogie. 
The alternatives? Bandwidth management. Purchase internet minutes to keep down the cost and use at times when everyone else is rocking and rolling. If you have a tunneled gateway on shore with packet shaping you should be good to go. Just remember this can bypass some of the policies enforced by MTN to ensure things don't slow to a crawl for everyone else so please be courteous. 
3G hardware is another option when in port. Speed is getting better and this equipment can be purchased built right into the (notebook) pc! CDMA rather limits you to the Western hemisphere, however. Quad band and even pentaband hardware is also available for wider global coverage. The important thing to remember is paying attention to the network status of your device. Roaming charges can be horrendous. Try Twenty Five Cents per Kilobyte! That's a dollar a SECOND to download at dialup speed! Let's see how much this post cost me at that rate. Time to break out the calculator. Shit, this one does not do scientific notation and only has eight digits. WHHHHHHHHHHAM! 
All is not lost, however. Just remember the thought of being able to send an email while on a cruise was laughable just a few years ago. Ditto for cellphone passthrough use. A few years from now smart phones will have www access anywhere on the globe. That's a double edged sword as always as the idiots that abuse it can be anywhere but that's ok. My rubber hose attitude adjustment tool works even when the batteries in everything else have failed and solar is out of the question due to being on the dark side of the terminator at the winter solstice. :rockon:
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PCD_Barb
Cruiser
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Posted: Tue Jul 8th, 2008 12:37 am | 3rd Post |
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Thanks for your reply! Yes, I need a *SHOCK* emoticon at least!
Unfortunately the type of support I need to provide can't be courteous as you suggest. I really need access any day, any time. As it is, I've dealt with end users hitting the panic button because I was away on a cruise. I need to connect via blueRoam VPN and TCP/IP. blueRoam is not stable when it comes to dial-up speeds.
Gosh darn Cellular at Sea should offer something! But in the interim, I saw this and thought it might fly.
http://www.tariam.co.uk/systems-mobile.asp
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kimdave68
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| Joined: | Tue Feb 20th, 2007 |
| Location: | The Engine Room |
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Posted: Tue Jul 8th, 2008 01:02 am | 4th Post |
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Ah those SSL vpn's don't deal well with latency approaching 1 second. If you set up a RRAS gateway via PPTP on the local domain you'd find ship community (MTN) to be much more useable. That's been my experience. RDP, VOIP work perfectly. When it's lightning and thunder prohibiting climbing the upper reaches of the ship, I'm fine with sipping a Mai Tai in spinnakers while talking on my desk phone hitched to my thinkpad. Others (Kim included!) think I'm insane. (but the devil on my shoulder in the meantime is telling me to go topside for a whiff of fresh ozone from the lightning.) I punched that sucker out after recovery from getting the sheets shocked out of me back and forth from the last lightning strike!
Last edited on Tue Jul 8th, 2008 01:03 am by kimdave68
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PCD_Barb
Cruiser
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Posted: Tue Jul 8th, 2008 04:01 am | 5th Post |
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Get out! LOL! Kim, do you really live with this guy?
J/K Dave! Thanks for entertaining my questions. I'll look into your suggestions though, short of dealing with lightening strikes of course!
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