Has anyone experience running TracPhone Vx or Inmarsat FleetBroadband ?

[FlippyFloppies]

Zonker, have you tried one of the new "wifi hotspots"? I'm thinking they would work great for at least coastal sailing in between marinas if you find yourself needing to send a few work emails out or whatever the case.

Even if you had to get one in a few different countries, I think you would come out much cheaper. I believe they provide extremely fast speeds anywhere cell phone signal is received. I'm in the same situation that you are, and that is my only hurdle to cross before we shove off. I'd be perfectly fine paying the 5 grand if it came with a money back trial period or something. Otherwise, I'd be blowing **** up if I spent that much and it sucked =p

[goboatingnow]

Cell wifi hotspots. You mean a iPhone 4s

Dave

[FlippyFloppies]

What I'm talking about looks like a credit card, gets a satellite signal, and provides a 4g wifi connection that you can connect to with your ipad, pc, etc. I misspoke when I said through cell signal. To my understanding, these acquire signal differently than phones. Telus makes one called the rocket.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by FlippyFloppies

What I'm talking about looks like a credit card, gets a satellite signal, and provides a 4g wifi connection that you can connect to with your ipad, pc, etc. I misspoke when I said through cell signal. To my understanding, these acquire signal differently than phones. Telus makes one called the rocket.

The rocket is a 3G /4G cell to wifi bridge in effect. ( hotspot being the in vogue word). You iphone 4S does more of less the same. But it works from the land based cell network

Dave

[ixtlan22]

Just a caution...be very-very careful using Wifi, esp Wifi hotspot in fact any roaming data outside of the United States. I was even set up for International Data etc...my first bill for 6 days was $923.00 and that was for roaming data only! Another cruiser got their's for $2250.00 !! Read and understand the fine-fine print. What they don't tell you is that overseas or International data roaming is billed by a third party to your company unless the specifically say different. When I went to protest they did the old..."that's not our department thing" and "there's nothing we can do thing" ...Other's may have better or different plans...I had Sprint Unlimited everything...guess what? Not for International Roaming!...imagine my surprise when I got the bill and I'm only 100 miles South of San Diego! I will say, they have been working with me on it...I probably won't have to pay all of that...but I should get an emotional suffering (heart attack) rebate or something.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by ixtlan22

Just a caution...be very-very careful using Wifi, esp Wifi hotspot in fact any roaming data outside of the United States. I was even set up for International Data etc...my first bill for 6 days was $923.00 and that was for roaming data only! Another cruiser got their's for $2250.00 !! Read and understand the fine-fine print. What they don't tell you is that overseas or International data roaming is billed by a third party to your company unless the specifically say different. When I went to protest they did the old..."that's not our department thing" and "there's nothing we can do thing" ...Other's may have better or different plans...I had Sprint Unlimited everything...guess what? Not for International Roaming!...imagine my surprise when I got the bill and I'm only 100 miles South of San Diego! I will say, they have been working with me on it...I probably won't have to pay all of that...but I should get an emotional suffering (heart attack) rebate or something.

Yes but is easy and cheap to buy a local SIM
Dave

[ixtlan22]

Yeah Dave...thanks...your correct... I was referring up above when they were talking about using direct call type of WiFi Hotspots...

Sim cards work...much cheaper...urging not to get caught up like I did and be sure you understand what your getting and how much it's gonna cost ya~

Thanks

Ray

[Zonker]

Originally Posted by FlippyFloppies

Zonker, have you tried one of the new "wifi hotspots"? I'm thinking they would work great for at least coastal sailing in between marinas if you find yourself needing to send a few work emails out or whatever the case.

Even if you had to get one in a few different countries, I think you would come out much cheaper. I believe they provide extremely fast speeds anywhere cell phone signal is received. I'm in the same situation that you are, and that is my only hurdle to cross before we shove off. I'd be perfectly fine paying the 5 grand if it came with a money back trial period or something. Otherwise, I'd be blowing **** up if I spent that much and it sucked =p

Sure ... but the issue is the speed. If coverage is provided at 9.6kbps then even the biggest mega-booster doesn't help if you need at least 32kbps.

Jesus Christ ... 33 kbps modem was a sensation ... back in 1995 ... haha

[2una]

Originally Posted by Zonker

Sure ... but the issue is the speed. If coverage is provided at 9.6kbps then even the biggest mega-booster doesn't help if you need at least 32kbps.

Jesus Christ ... 33 kbps modem was a sensation ... back in 1995 ... haha

Here's a speedtest from my 3G - you won't get signal very far offshore tho.
Little better than what you think its capable of i think

[Zonker]

Originally Posted by 2una

Here's a speedtest from my 3G - you won't get signal very far offshore tho.
Little better than what you think its capable of i think

Wow ... impressive but if the server is in Johannesburg (< 50 miles) then you are not even close to the sea !

Wonder what bandwidth you have between north of Cape Town and Namibia !

[2una]

Originally Posted by Zonker

Wow ... impressive but if the server is in Johannesburg (< 50 miles) then you are not even close to the sea !

Wonder what bandwidth you have between north of Cape Town and Namibia !

Hi,no i'm right by the beach in Durban....I was just pointing out that 3G isn't a slug like you were suggesting @ 9kbps.....It would be a fine option to use around main centres/ ports etc but its the same with cell ph coverage, its dead once you move away offshore.
Usable & cheaper instead of a sat ph when in such areas if you haven't got free WiFi access.

I reckon you need to evaluate if your trading is profitable @ +$10 per MB for data that your going to be paying trading via sat ph - the Iridium Openport/Pilot - Sailor 150/Fleetbroadband system will do it with a $5-6000 outlay but is the end result going to warrant it once you take out the data cost?
Swing trading maybe with EOD data but 30sec data i dunno about that one.

[Zonker]

Originally Posted by 2una

I was just pointing out that 3G isn't a slug like you were suggesting @ 9kbps
...
but is the end result going to warrant it once you take out the data cost?

Misunderstanding - 3G would be perfect but in rural areas, you might get GPRS instead of 3G. Looks like there are GSM boosters available out there - just need to know if they really work.

Yes ... as I said, I will use something like a remote controller to trigger the trades. Also the quotes will be downloaded, cached on a diff basis. Which means the charts are rendered locally.

And yes - I really think I can make a living of it - even at $10 / MB ... as long as it's only 1 MB a day or so ! ...

[2una]

I know the likes of this work on a fixed installation - up to 20dbm improvement - which can be the differance between getting 3G instead of 2G(GPRS)......tower needs to have 3G available tho.
I don't think that antenna would be any good underway tho, its very directional.
Differant countries use differant 3G frequencys too.