Internet access on board

[goboatingnow]

in practice if your want internet at sea, ie on your boat, thats not tied to a dock, that you really only have either inmarsat Fleetbroadband or Iridium OpenPort. Hardware is around 5K dollars for both systems and airtime costs rnage from about 12 dollars to 20 dollars a megabyte . Speeds range from about 32Kn.s to about 150 kb/s with inmarsat offering the greater. This is still too low in my mind for web browsng, not to mention the horriffic costs.

An alternative for near coast is UMTS 3G. You can buy ahem illegal boosters, that are near impossible to detect anyway and this will enable you to reach distant towers, provided you have more of less line of sight. Receiving the tower is not a problem. Mount the dedicated GSM antenna high up on the mast.

Outside of that there are high speed systems, but with the megabucks thats needs you dont need this forums advice.

[CDK]

I just wanted to investigate possibilities for the tourists who pass by and ask me for a weather forecast or want to check their email box. My own needs are covered now that we have a direct satellite link.

This is an area with a few well sheltered bays: boat owners now have to leave the area and go to the nearest port (12 miles) to get WLAN access or buy a usb stick and a sim card to connect by GPRS, but in that case they still have to leave their sheltered anchor place because there is no line of sight.