Internet on boat while cruising?

[MikeP]

The last time I checked into internet access for the boat was 6-7 years ago and, at that time, I thought it was totally impractical. The antenna was expensive and it was slow. I'm wondering if things have improved much since then. Anybody done anything with this recently?

 

[JLR]

Mike - glad you asked. While my system is by no means the most current or necessarily the best, it works just fine and is in use today. I have a simple aircard plugged into a router. Thus, the aircard picks up the internet like a cellular telephone which it is of course and the router permits it to be broadcast as wifi throughout the boat. I have not run into the expected data usage problem but do instruct folks not to stream while onboard. When I checked into other systems earlier in the year, like what the really big boys use, it seemed cost prohibitive.

 

[Beckytek]

I bought a hotspot router from T-mobile for $175 and got internet service from it. You can buy a plan with 5, 10 15, or 20 gigs per month and the charges go up as capacity increases. The charges for the hotspot can be paid monthly as you use it, ($6.50 /m). The hotspot will access up to 6 or 8 devices, can't remember.
After I got it , I discovered there was a free wifi at my marina. I am using the wifi from the fishermans inn crab deck restaurant which is a stone's throw from the boat. So I canceled my service. Ron

 

[Blaine Thorpe]

We use an ap called Foxfi. It cost 9.00 when we purchased it. There is a free version, but it times out after 30 minutes. All you have to do is restart again for another 30 minutes.

It may depend on your phone carrier and type of phone if you can use it. We use Verizon and have android phones.

Foxfi doesn't use any data and will work if you have a carrier signal. We have been using it for several years now. On the boat, in the car, or at home sometimes.

Try the free version first. if it works, spend the $9.00, it is well worth it.

 

[seasalt]

I enable my iPhone's hot spot with my cellular provider, AT & T, which sends a wifi signal to my laptop and tablet. It works anywhere that I have phone service.

It costs about $40 a month on top of my normal phone plan and works great. I don't download music or large files so the speed is very satisfactory.

 

[bobk]

Mike,

I think what you choose will depend somewhat on where you want to use it, and how badly. As you probably know Gayle and I are long range costal cruisers. Our solution is a Verizon Jet Pack. Before that we used a Verizon air card. The range of the Jet Pack is a bit longer than a cell phone for some reason, so it works well in the Carolinas and Georgia swamps where we anchor, but there are a few places we go where we are without cell or internet for the night, so we plan accordingly. We always have some sort of coverage in Florida and the small towns along the Erie Canal. The cost of the Jet Pack depends on your plan. It can be bundled with the cell phone in a family plan.

Bobk
Baltimore Yacht Club

 

[SeaEric]

+1 on the Verizon Jet Pack. We use it on the boat in Summer and it's surprising how useful it is elsewhere in the off season.

 

[Pascal]

there are two ways to get internet service on board, wifi and cellular.

Wifi uses local access points, typical at marinas so you will only have service when docked, or when anchoded in range of an open access point. Usually to get decent speed you will need booster and antenna on the boat... I use a Wave Rogue and it works pretty well..l about $500. It will pull a good signal uo to a mile away. If you home marina has wifi this is probably a good solution for you as long as you don't expect service underway

Cellular will give you access underway jsut about everywhere. You can either do it by enabling hot spot on your phone or by getting either a card or one the gizmos that combine the cellular card with a router to share the connection between a handful or users on boards.

Couple of things to keep in mind...

With some device and carriers you may not be able to use the phone while someone is using th connection. I believe ATT is (or was) the only carrier on which a iphone could handle data and voice at the same time.

If you have a legacy unlimited data plan on your phone, enabling hot spot will switch you to a limited plan.. Usually 5 gig a month which is fine as long as you don't stream or downloads movies.

I ve been using a cellular card from ATT for years now, unlimited which I plug into a router so multiple users can use the connection. Currently I have a cradlepoint CR35 and that works pretty well.

 

[Mike36c]

Pascal, the wife and I are headed to the Exumas next week, other than marina wifi what are there any other options out there while on the hook?

 

[Dan Mapes]

Wifi is very sketchy even when available in the Exumas. We have a Galaxy S4 which is unlocked. With FoxFi installed, and the Bahamas Telephone chip and data plan, we have a hotspot when in cellular range. We also have a Wilson Cell phone booster.

Some places offer it in the Exumas but with BTC at 30 bucks for 2 Gig, it's tough to use another service.

 

[Pascal]

Wifi is pretty limited in the exumas. Witht he Rogue booster I usually get a good free hotspot on the east side of th normans cay anchorage (east of the dc3) but not further west near the dock.

Warderick wells has limited and expensive service that you ha to prepay at the office.

Around Staniel, Exuma wifi seems to have reduced their coverage. Staniel has wifi at the dock, but limited bandwith.

Nothing further south till you get to Gtown

We ve been using BTC. While most phones are locked preventing you from using in a BTC sim, tablets including iPads are not so now the best solution is to buy BTC sims and putting them in. As Dan mentioned it s $30 for 2 gig which is pretty reasonable. The problem is that you need a BTC to phone to activate the data plan. It s a bit of pita every time you need to put other 2 gig to take the sim out of the ipad, putting it in the BTC ohone, do the *205# thing to activate a new plan, shut down the phone, restart it and then out the sim back in the iPad.

I also have a basic BTC droid Galaxy which I use to activate the dataplans. It can also be used as hot spot so various users can share the connection. One thing to keep in mind though is that most new devices like iPhones, iPads and I imagine others, will do a lot of backing up and background stuff when on wifi whereas the same ipad with using cel data with its sim will not, making your plan last longer.

Reception is good around highborne and normans, weak as you move south to shroud and hawksbill. There is pretty much no cel reception in warderick and it picks up again around Cambridge and pipe approaching the tower at Staniel.

Service around Staniel is slow because of the amount of people using the tower.

It's very good around blackooint and little farmer, dropping again once you reach Rudder and picking up again at Lea stocking and Barraterre. Having spent most the last 3 months going up and down between nassau and Gtown, I know pretty well where it works

One more thing... In addition to setting up an online account on the BTC website so you can refill the account by credit card when using a BTC sim in an iPad or other device you need to go to settigns>cellular data>APN setting and put in internet.btcbahamas.com in the APN field.

Finally , if you are an ATT customer you can sign up for one of their new passport plans. They are good for 30 days and vary between $30 and $120 giving you cheaper roaming and messaging than BTC. Deoending on the plan you get as much as 800MB of data. I used the $120 plan and was paying 0.35 a minute for voice which is pretty good.

 

[Mike36c]

Thanks guys, I like being off the grid while cruising so I'll only be checking mail/weather every couple of days. I do have unlocked phones and iPads but it seems the ATT might be the way to go for such small usage. I also assume the coverage will be the same with BTC. My apologies if I high jacked this thread, I'll start a new one for our trip.

 

[Pascal]

Yes coverage is the same with ATT passport. Not sure if passport is avail for ipad

Because of the usage limit make sure you set some of the apps cellular data access to wifi only. What I actually do is turn off data roaming when not using the phone to make some app doesn't start using a bunch of data in th background.

Also if staying more than 30 days, make sure you renew at 30 days or stop using it as you will not receive a warning that your plan has expired... You will receive a text saying you have use $100 of data roaming instead

 

[savarese1]

We use the verizon jet pack. Cost is about 100 per month. We can stream movies and workon the boat. Since the pack utilizes cell towers it works on the ICW very well.