Internet

[Scatterling]

My Bullet helps pull in wifi at many marinas in the Bahamas, when my Mac can't even see the signal. Service is seldom good though, and it is really useless for anything other than e-mail and the odd choppy FaceTime session. And I don't like the "free" wifi claims. Call it "included", because there is nothing "free" about marinas.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Scatterling

My Bullet helps pull in wifi at many marinas in the Bahamas, when my Mac can't even see the signal. Service is seldom good though, and it is really useless for anything other than e-mail and the odd choppy FaceTime session. And I don't like the "free" wifi claims. Call it "included", because there is nothing "free" about marinas.

Yet at Oak Orchid, Marsh Harbor-and way out where I was anchored near Tahiti beach the $20/wk Internet wifi came in good and I could video stream all day.

Meanwhile is the USA half the marinas wifi internet is so bad you can barely check our email half the time.

[mikedefieslife]

Many marinas charge for wifi. It is often poor and it has nothing to do with masts blocking the signal, since is can be poor when in line of sight of the antenna.

Most likely scenario is under-specced hardware and lack of bandwidth.

[Kenomac]

Don,

You seem to be complaining quite a lot lately. Are you happy doing this cruising thing?

Honest question, nothing implied.

I'm sitting here in an Italian shipyard with no internet service, and I'm quite happy using my purchased T-Mobile service to communicate. I couldn't care any less about being able to stream video, because I go cruising to get away from things like TV, radio and the news.

Cheers

Ken

[CaptTom]

Our marina is a not-for-profit membership club. We certainly don't make anywhere near the profit any going business like a hotel or motel does. We're lucky to break even.

We regularly get complaints about the poor quality WiFi.

The board has researched the cost of providing higher bandwidth and more access points. The number is staggering, and the board would be lynched if they suggested raising the annual dues to pay for it.

Bottom line is, people want it if it's free, but they're not willing to pay for it.

When we get complaints, and explain this, most people just shrug and say they'll use their cellular data plans, instead.

[RTB]

Five years of full time cruising and living aboard at a few marinas, I agree that marina internet access usually sucks wherever we are.

Jeff and Karen Siegel spent a couple of months with us in the recent past. We (the marina) discussed wifi problems, and he gave us some suggestions. This issue has become a thorn in our side, but is nothing new - The Marina Minute™: The WiFi Perfect Storm

In our rules, the boater is prohibited from using a booster, amplifier, etc. These may make you happier, but you deprive others while using this equipment.

I had calls daily about the internet being down for quite some time. Months actually. Now that a few boats have moved on, or a couple of owners have left their boats, we no longer get these calls. Why is that? Our wifi miraculously fixed itself? I no longer have to reset the wifi on docks 10 and 13 every single day (sometimes twice). We have over 300 slips, and a ton of liveaboards here. We don't charge for wifi. We don't charge a liveaboard fee either. But, we are not going to spend 70 or 80K, plus thousands each month to redo our internet. We'll provide you with a safe marina, with nice amenities including free beer, free laundry, and happy hours 3 days a week (free beer and wine). I'll continue walking the docks looking for those "illegal" antennas!

I can't find the post by Jeff....Active Captain, that I'm looking for. Where he explains how boosters (and whatever - I'm not a nerd, so don't know all the terms) affect other users. I'll send him an email and get back here when I can.

Ralph

[masonc]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

The difference between marinas and hotels is that hotels have a TV in every room.

A high-speed, commercial-grade internet connection which can support a marina full of users can cost thousands of dollars a month. But it won't help. Your marina customers will all retire to their cabins and start streaming video at the same time. Your internet connection will be saturated, and your customers will complain about the lousy service.

So, you pay for enough bandwidth to say you've got free WiFi, and people quickly learn that if they want to stream video, they need to buy their own cellular data plan.

Long-term, this is the way the world is going anyway. Eventually I suspect we will all use just one network, at home, on the water or on the road, beamed from cell towers.

There are ways to prioritize web browsing over video, if you have the equipment to do so. No monitoring required. It's just a matter of having the money and technical knowledge to set it up.

Take it from someone who installs commercial WiFi, all these issues are easy to fix. They can't be fixed with a $100 residential router.
Any proper commercial solution will include traffic and client management. It is trivial to configure client bandwidth limits.
If I was running a marina, I would use a wireless backbone to distributed Acess Points, probably built into some strategic pedestals. I would allow low bandwidth to all clients as part of the fees but offer high bandwidth for an extra fee. I would ban the use of extenders and routers.
One of the big problems with WiFi is the lack of channels. The 2.4ghz band only had three channels, and you would need them all to provide the service. Backhaul would be 5.8ghz where there are far more channels, so that would not be a problem. Smart systems move clients up to 5.8ghz for this reason, but this technology costs money. Smart systems also tell the owner when someone operates their own Access Point.
If you are in a marina with dodgy WiFi, run a WiFi analyzer app on your phone. I'll bet you see tens of SSIDs. They can't all share three channels. Very often the problem is not so much range as noise. A liveaboard boat could have ten devices, all fighting for bandwidth and attention. Add extenders and amplifiers and you can see how this problem escalates.
Too many business owners think the $25 extender junk offered in Best Buy will solve their problems and cater for 100 clients. I see this in hotels all the time. Eventually enough customers complain or leave and the owners asks for professional help.
Commercial systems like Ruckus, our favourite, can handle whole citys or conference centers without issues, but they are not cheap.

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by masonc

Take it from someone who installs commercial WiFi, all these issues are easy to fix. They can't be fixed with a $100 residential router.

Great, an expert!

Would you be able to (roughly) estimate the cost of the following system?

100 boats on 4, 300-foot long docks. The farthest slip is 600 feet from the marina office. All the docks have power posts, but running new Ethernet cable would require considerable effort, moving and removing docks.

Assume 50% of the boats have living accommodations where people might stay for a weekend, or all summer, with their laptops, TVs and portable devices. The other 50% are day boats used mostly for fishing or day-sailing, whose owners might still want to stream audio on their cell phones for short periods of time.

Also assume that there is no technical staff on-site to manage or maintain anything, but there is labor available for non-technical work.

I came up with an answer a few years ago, with the help of our network guys at work. I'd love to hear something a little more current.

It would also be a good, real-world example of how and why these issues come up, and what it would take to solve them.

Thanks again!!

[masonc]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

Great, an expert!

Would you be able to (roughly) estimate the cost of the following system?

Do you have a plan of the marina area you want to cover to scale? That would help a lot.

[masonc]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

Great, an expert!

Would you be able to (roughly) estimate the cost of the following system?

What is the address of the marina?

[sailorboy1]

BTW - for the "marinas don't make enough money etc." people my wife says the company she used to work for installed wifi/internet systems in RV campgrounds. I think that is a good land equivalent to a marina!

[masonc]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

BTW - for the "marinas don't make enough money etc." people my wife says the company she used to work for installed wifi/internet systems in RV campgrounds. I think that is a good land equivalent to a marina!

Very similar. You should ask them if they install Ruckus equipment.

[Mike OReilly]

Seems obvious to me that this is basic free market capitalism operating as it is designed to. Businesses provide services that generate profit. They respond to market messages, which are mostly financial. If the marina saw their revenue dropping, and connected it with poor wifi service, they would either improve it, or go out of business.

So if you want to change a business owner's mind regarding the level or types of service they offer, the answer is simple: stop spending money there. All the complaining in the world makes little difference if the money keeps rolling in.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Seems obvious to me that this is basic free market capitalism operating as it is designed to. Businesses provide services that generate profit. They respond to market messages, which are mostly financial. If the marina saw their revenue dropping, and connected it with poor wifi service, they would either improve it, or go out of business.

So if you want to change a business owner's mind regarding the level or types of service they offer, the answer is simple: stop spending money there. All the complaining in the world makes little difference if the money keeps rolling in.

I agree 100%. Plus why would the marina management even want to cater to liveaboard boaters? The boat sitting right there in the next slip over which never gets used... generates the same amount of cash.

I would also venture to guess that nearly 100% of the folks residing in the RV park are living in their RV 100% of the time it's there, just like the motel example. Whereas in the marina, very few stay on their boats at any given time. Marinas aren't the same as campgrounds. Why bother catering to the needs of the few, especially when the few demand an expensive service be given to them for free?

It doesn't make sense. If someone wants to sit around streaming video all day, maybe a marina isn't the best place to be doing it.

Geez, the only time I stream video is when I'm at home bored and waiting to go to work. I wouldn't even think to do it or miss it while on our boat.

[masonc]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Seems obvious to me that this is basic free market capitalism operating as it is designed to. Businesses provide services that generate profit.

It's a technical problem. Handling the number of devices that a marina would have, providing client control and bandwidth without allowing one user to hog it all is a technical issue. There are solutions, the trick is to find the right solution for an acceptable cost. By providing basic free service with a costly upgrade, the heavy user can pay some of the cost for the basic users.