Satellite Internet??

[neworleansrich]

Has anyone tried using Hughes, Dish, or Excede satellite internet while cruising? I know the dishes are big but maybe a temporary set up dockside?

[denverd0n]

Would not work when at sea, anchored, or moored, as the dish must be steady and precisely aimed. At a dock, might work, but you would have to re-aim the thing each time you move.

Given that you can get wifi at so many different places these days, I'm not seeing this as a very reasonable solution. It may well be that wifi is available at the marina where you are docked, and if it is not then just carry your laptop to the nearest place where it is.

The kind of satellite internet solutions that will work when your boat is moving are (for most of us) prohibitively expensive.

[FlyingDiver]

Dish doesn't actually do sat internet, they just partner with Exede or Hughes.

Both Exede and Hughes use spot-beamed service for their primary offerings. I think Exede is only spot-beam while Hughes still has their older Ku based wide footprint sat service which is only available through resellers.

The spot beam service won't work for cruising as it requires central office (NOC) changes any time it's moved more than a few miles. Assuming you could aim the dish properly in the first place, which generally takes a trained technician for those Ka band units.

As the previous poster said, there are sat internet options for mobile customers, but they're much more expensive.