Internet Connectivity When Miles Offshore.

[Nordic cat]

Marine BGAN is now available from Thrane and Thrane.

See:SAILOR FleetBroadband - Satellite Communication - Products - Maritime - Corporate - Thrane & Thrane

This also shows coverage. It's not cheap, but has WiFi built in as well.


Pricing example is here: BGAN Service Rate Pricing from Ground Control

Speed is said to be ISDN level.

Phone calls are cheaper than Iridium as far as I can see.

Regards

Alan

[Zanshin]

Don't forget the offshore option of having a SSB onboard and using an e-mail system such as SailMail

[Buddy_Y]

I agree whole-heartedly with HelloSailor's doubts, and I share them. Personally, though, I don't need the "50 miles offshore" they're advertising, I just need a reliable five or ten miles up the coast from a town, that sort of thing. That's why I'm hoping that somebody has tried the system.

Fingers crossed.

[hellosailor]

Alan, in the Inmarsat PDFs they indicate that the Sailor500 unit is throttled (restricted in their server) to 256kbps and the Sailor 250 to half of that at 128kbps, although burst rates may be twice as high on each.

ISDN "speeds" are a moot point, ISDN kind of came and went in the US market, the only real advantage it had was the same as "Frame Relay", i.e. you got a dedicated line to the service's server, so you had assured bandwidth--at least, that far into the system--rather than slowing down every time a new user turned on their computer down theblock from you.

Those are about equal to "slowest DSL" speeds in the US, way slower than cable modem speeds, far better than phone modem speeds. Competitive with cellular modem systems--depending on which cellco you believe about what their real service speeds might be.[g]

Damn neat trick for a private boat in the middle of nowhere though! Remember not so long ago when cell phones cost $1/minute?

[Nordic cat]

I used ISDN (64 kb/s) for a number of years before DSL came, and it worked reasonably well (acceptable speed).

Today I use a USB Turbo 3G modem that gives me up to 7.2 Mbit/s up to a few miles offshore (5-7) then it drops down to about 2 Mbit, further out it switches to GPRS which is slow, but okay for mail. Coverage here in the Baltic is from 5 to about 30 miles out.
The Turbo 3G costs 60 $/month with 20 Megs included.(Company pays)

I will go for the BGAN system when I go cruising in a couple of years, with Iridium for text messaging/backup as well as SSB. (text messages between 2 iridiums are "free" or at least included in the basic price- so buying a couple of old ones is a viable option if you need to touch base often)

regards

Alan
Regards

Alan

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by Nordic cat

Marine BGAN is now available from Thrane and Thrane.

See:SAILOR FleetBroadband - Satellite Communication - Products - Maritime - Corporate - Thrane & Thrane

Their map shows no Pacific coverage, until a satellite gets launched at some date "to be determined". Also, the unit draws over 10A @ 12V.

Still, this could be the way to go for some people...

[Aquah0lic]

Well, I have some good news for you all. (unless you just bought one of those $5000 gyro thingies)

Alltel is now testing a new broadband technology, just like the air cards, but this uses GPS signals instead of cell towers. Its not avail yet and its sort of hush hush, but my buddy who works for Alltel told me about it.

It will work with a new Blackberry world edition phone by tethering to your laptop directly. It will be broadband though, not dial-up. I've tethered my Razor for web access for the past few months and get pretty fast DL speeds even now, but am excited about the new GPS technology as I will be getting to field(sea) trial one of the demos when my friend recieves them.

so hold off on the gyro gizmo. (besides, they're ugly!)

[David M]

Originally Posted by Aquah0lic

Well, I have some good news for you all. (unless you just bought one of those $5000 gyro thingies)

Alltel is now testing a new broadband technology, just like the air cards, but this uses GPS signals instead of cell towers. Its not avail yet and its sort of hush hush, but my buddy who works for Alltel told me about it.

It will work with a new Blackberry world edition phone by tethering to your laptop directly. It will be broadband though, not dial-up. I've tethered my Razor for web access for the past few months and get pretty fast DL speeds even now, but am excited about the new GPS technology as I will be getting to field(sea) trial one of the demos when my friend recieves them.

so hold off on the gyro gizmo. (besides, they're ugly!)

How does it use GPS with GPS being Rx only?

[hellosailor]

Aquaholic has been PUNKED BIG TIME by his buddy. April fools, dude.

[Beausoleil]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

Their map shows no Pacific coverage, until a satellite gets launched at some date "to be determined". Also, the unit draws over 10A @ 12V.

Still, this could be the way to go for some people...

I actually got out of a meeting with Inmarsat this morning at work. The launch of their third I4 has been delayed because of totally unrelated booster problems. They're discussing contingency plans with both their insurer and with the Russian government, who'll supply the actual launch vehicle. The current plan is to launch it in 3Q2008 and put it into service before the end of 1Q2009. That will enable Pacific coverage.

The technology behind the bird is pretty amazing. Imagine 48 meter's worth of solar panels on your boat, generating 14kW of power! It weighs almost 6000kg - in the same range as a 32-34' sailboat. The terminals themselves utilize GSM 3GPP technology - same as GSM cellular.

[Huntermoo]

these guys were at the sanctuary cove boat show. Internet for Boats, Internet at Sea, Marine Internet, Internet for Ships they seem to get good range on the telstra network

[exfishnz]

FYI: saw some figures (all $ in USD) from DeltaWave a couple of months back:

Sailor 250 $13k (have seen it elsewhere for about $11k)
Sailor 500 $20k

At the low end it's $13.50 p/mb
At the high end it's 2.6gb (rolled over) for $5.5k p/m ($66k p/a)

I know it doesn't cover the poles, but I've read that the 250 doesn't do too well high up north or low down south, guess this makes sense since the dish is smaller (less db gain).

Was wondering about using one of these units so I could keep working on the water, but for the cost (& risk of failure while I'm rolling my gut's out in the middle of the southern ocean ), I don't think its worth it. Think I'll take another look at sailmail & iridium, there's a few things that can be “hacked up” in regards to retrieving http content in a slimmer & quicker manner.

Btw: Inmarsat's a bit late updating their www, it still states the Inmarsat-4 F3 (pacific satellite) launch in Q2

[hellosailor]

Beau-
What has to be done once a satellite it launched, that takes so long it will be four or five quarters from launch time until it actually is available for use? I would have expected a couple of days, a couple of weeks, but over a year in orbit before it can be used??

[bill good]

G'day CISCO,

Have you looked at the coverage maps of the 3G network? It won't cover ocean trips but coastal & land trips it does a good job. You can couple that to VOIP & it all works out very cost effective but there are "traps" with "the plans" available. email me for further info if you want.
william.goodward@bigpond.com

Regards

[exfishnz]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

What has to be done once a satellite it launched, that takes so long it will be four or five quarters from launch time until it actually is available for use?

Good question. You'd think that once the thing is positioned (in orbit) & some self diagnostics are completed then she'd be ready to go live

You know, there's a couple of non-profit large research vessels based in california that are still using multiple iridium units[1] (last time I looked at their www). You'd think that Fleetbroadband would be perfect for them.

[1] channel bonded using *nix.