Internet over seas

[Helio]

How can I get internet, when sailing the South Pacific, while in the middle of the ocean?

[tbodine88]

Google is my friend:
Maritime Satellite Internet for Ships, Boats, Yachts, Barges. FleetBroadband, Iridium, iDirect

Has prices.

[travellerw]

At the moment, unless you have piles of money you can't get "Internet" offshore. However, if you do have piles of money(1000s/month), the link above will point you in the right direction.

The closest affordable solution would be a Iridium GO. Technically it can get data off the Internet, but you can't really surf.

[jackdale]

To be technical.

The Internet will be pretty much restricted to the mailto and ftp protocols; the latter will require the latest and great technologies, the former can use SSB. You can forget about http (the Web)

[denverd0n]

As above. Short answer is that if you want to be able to surf the net from the middle of the ocean it will require tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and a service contract that will run into the thousands each month. If you can settle for short e-mails and very limited file transfers, you can get that for quite a bit less.

So, what do you really need?

[oldtomcat]

I bought Iridium GO $1250. plus $100. mo. Great for weather, text, email. can make a phone call (expensive) and does have an emergency button. Also water proof and portable.
at did you pay for your Chart plotter?

[travellerw]

Originally Posted by oldtomcat

I bought Iridium GO $1250. plus $100. mo. Great for weather, text, email. can make a phone call (expensive) and does have an emergency button. Also water proof and portable.
at did you pay for your Chart plotter?

But to be clear.. You can't "Surf" the internet with that setup. You are also very limited on your e-mail size!

[roverhi]

You can get on the internet via Ham or Marine SSB and a Pactor Modem. It's slow and really only useful for downloading gribs and sending and receiving email. The SSB service is Sailmail and is by subscription. Ham radio is free via Winlink. Have no experience with Sailmail but hear their coverage is better than Winlink.

[ka4wja]

Helio,
Please let us know what your application is that requires internet access while at sea / sailing offshore, let alone in the middle of an ocean???

'Cause in my 45-50 years of offshore sailing / voyaging, I've never met anyone that actually needed this access....that wasn't traveling on a mega-yacht!!



Now, onto the answer to your question...

As others have posted, if you are looking for "internet access" and what those onshore call "web surfing", while you are offshore more than a few miles, then this is going to cost you a LOT of money!!!!

Originally Posted by Helio

How can I get internet, when sailing the South Pacific, while in the middle of the ocean?

---- Think $15,000 to $25,000 for equipment, plus airtime / data charges, and the significant electrical power, etc...for a decent VSAT system...(this will give you plenty of bandwidth, and even allow some video streaming, albeit not HD movies!)



---- If you get by with a rather medium-speed broadband connection (~ 128kb to 250kb), then the costs become a bit lower....
Think $5000 to $10,000 for equipment, but even higher charges for data, for either an INMARSAT FleetBroadband system or an Iridium Pilot system...




This has been discussed over and over again....many times....and the bottom line is:
Bandwidth / Speed costs!!!



There are many threads right here that lay out all the details for you....all you needed to do was a quick search....
Have a look here:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1550219

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1905250

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1879621

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...et-126926.html





And, should you want to see what some people are being mislead / misinformed about, have a look here...as these are discussions about "sat phones" and their VERY SLOW speed data of 0.0024kb.....yes, you read that correctly....
Compare the 128kb/s of an Iridium Pilot and the 150kb/s data of the INMARSAT FleetBroadband150....to the 0.0024kb/s of an Iridium sat phone or INMARSAT iSatphonePro....

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1905002

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1911473

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1915027




Now, while a PACTOR 4 modem can allow data rates of up to 0.008kb/s, vs. a sat phone's 0.00024kb/s, the fact is that neither Sailmail nor Winlink allows web surfing....even if you could find some web site that is only text, etc., the web protocols, etc. just will not work thru a radio modem connection....
Sorry, Peter (roverhi), what you write is completely wrong!





Fair winds...

John

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by ka4wja

And, should you want to see what some people are being mislead / misinformed about, have a look here...as these are discussions about "sat phones" and their VERY SLOW speed data of 0.0024kb.....yes, you read that correctly....

Sorry, that's not right. The native datarate of the Iridium satphone is 2400 bits per second. That's 2.4kb/s, not 0.0024kb/s.

But, as you say, this is not fast enough for typical web-surfing. It is useful for email and some other data services, with some limitations.

I find my Iridium satphone to be generally faster than SSB/PACTOR-3. I haven't compared it to PACTOR-4.

[ka4wja]

Paul is correct!!

Sorry about that....I was thinking in Mb and then got distracted by making dinner, and came back to the computer....and, ooppps....

(this not being able to edit a posting after 30 minutes, really allows typos and "ooppss" moments to carry on, and some may not actually see the later corrections in later posts!!!
Any moderators reading this???)

Again, sorry!!!

But, still as Paul wrote 2.4kb/s just isn't enough to surf the web with...


John

[ka4wja]

BTW, if you see what I wrote just a few days ago, in another thread here, you'll see that I wrote it correctly then....but was thinking in Mb earlier this evening...Duh!

Originally Posted by ka4wja

...."connectivity" for various uses/purposes that would require web-access/web-surfing....

Facts are that with the e-mail-only connections of SSB, with only a few kb/s of speed (up to 8kb/s for PACTOR4)....and the even slower (2.4kb/s) data connections thru a basic sat phone, neither of these would give them any web-access/web-surfing....

Fair winds...

John

[ozskipper]

Best and cheapest option is to pick up local sims at each island nation you visit and use the date packages included by tethering your phone.

As other have alluded to, its financially prohibitive for the average cruiser to have it 24/7 when on the milk run.

[Skip JayR]

Originally Posted by tbodine88

Google is my friend:
Maritime Satellite Internet for Ships, Boats, Yachts, Barges. FleetBroadband, Iridium, iDirect

Has prices.

Just coming back from boat show... we had a specialist for who explained, that 24hx7d on high seas costs roughly 50,000 Euros / month as fees to have fully broadband. Only possible for rich people, on mega yachts and in sail racing where sponsors pay the costs.

Naturally you can downgrade, e.g. using Iridum GO!.... but still satellite systems are very costly (Intel Sat or Iridum are the only two systems).

Sailmail is a smaller service using Iridium... SailMail

[dungtroy]

How about 3g technology? or Internet from Sattelite?