Internet

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by RTB

One of the first rules you will see is-

* signal repeaters, amplifiers, or extenders are not permitted as we have determined these devices cause serious interruption in the WI-FI network causing outages and other intermittent problems.

have you read the thread ????

[RTB]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

Wow. That's a lot of rules. Most marinas have a page, admittedly often a legal size page in 8 pt type. Just wow. Do you have a comfortable chair with good light in your office to read through all that before signing?

It is a lot of rules. We do have a huge liveaboard community here. It seems most people follow the rules, and if they don't, it usually annoys someone else. From what I see, the rules make sense for our marina. No one leaving these days, and a waiting list for others wanting to come here.

Without rules, this place would be the "Wild Wild West".

And yes, we have a couple of Adirondack chairs outside the dock office if you want to read before you sign. I wish more people would. Maybe our rules are why we are "A Liveaboard's Paradise In Georgia". I live on my boat here, and wouldn't be here if I didn't feel that way myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eg1OSQeDX0

Ralph

[weavis]

Funny thing is that a marina with free wifi is more attractive than one without. Its called selling the sizzle.... ie the smell of the bacon is attractive.

In the average persons mind, even poor wifi can be utilised somewhat... and free always has atttraction.

There will be great strides made in due course with the infrastructure of wifi so the problem will resolve itself.. In Majorca, in one town I visit, the entire centre is a free wifi zone. They keep expanding the area. Connection is great and good speeds and bandwidth....

There is no doubt that the internet is now central to communications in our lives....

[sailorboy1]

My internet connection has worked well the last 4-5 days out in the mooring field (city mooring that includes wifi) where it was very spotty and kept losing connection a week ago. I haven't changed anything, I'm using my booster at the same power, I'm in the same spot and distance from the marina antenna, I'm still spinning in different directions with the current and wind, it is still raining on/off. So what has changed, there are less boats in the slips.

So I think it is just a matter of the marina system wasn't able to handle it before, simple as that.

[sailorboy1]

so of course that jinxed it

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by RTB

It is a lot of rules.

It's frustrating when people aren't considerate. It's rough when everyone has to labor under a bunch of specific rules. I bet there is a way to generalize and get down to a page.

Originally Posted by Dr. D

Without rules, this place would be the "Wild Wild West".

And you're the sheriff? *grin*

Originally Posted by Dr. D

I live on my boat here, and wouldn't be here if I didn't feel that way myself.

It looks lovely.

[a64pilot]

Where I am it's extremely variable, sometimes it's fast, but weekends forget it.
Then there is a Wifi device within range called "Hopper" want to bet some arse is streaming video with that?

[Sailor_Hutch]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

By "repeater", I presume you mean something like a Bullet in bridge mode, connected to a WIFI router inside the boat, to which the different users are connected.

Is this really harmful, if the power is turned down? I would have thought that this configuration would be much more efficient, than if you forced every crewman on every boat to connect each device to your marina system. I would have thought that low power very short distance connections inside the boat, would be far less disruptive, than a large number of higher powered connections to the marina system. No? Four or five people on board, each with one or two devices -- that can be a lot of connections.

It's the data rate just as much as the power, that is a problem. An aggregate data rate (several tablets and computers adding to the total) - will fill up the channel(s) more than a lower data rate. So, data rate limiting would help a lot (on the marina end). A lower data rate will have a longer range, due to S/N considerations, so will help the little guys out in the harbor. Increasing the data rate to a very high value (in terms of the WiFi adapter) - has the same effect as lowering the power.

I agree that an internal WiFi should not be considered a "rogue" AP. Most of the connections in an average internal boat network are going to be transmitting very low data rates (single NMEA packets every few seconds, etc). Very tiny rates really, and not contributing to much interference. These can't legally be stopped anyway. The FCC came down on a hotel for jamming a "rogue" AP that a patron was using. They considered it to be his right not to be interfered with.

I think that the S/N (signal to noise) is the problem to address, and it's more about the little guys being heard rather than hearing, since the marina can have a high powered setup. So, you mentioned the UK, where they have multiple AP heads around the marinas, on pontoons. That increases the S/N ratio for the little guys by dividing it all up. The more multiple AP heads that exists - the better it is for some of the little guys closer to that head.

[hellosailor]

Dockhead-
Every repeater, or router, or mesh node, whatever you have to pass a signal on? Is going to put traffic on two more WiFi channels, since it needs to talk to the "source" on the original two channels, and talk locally on two different ones. And given the limited number of channels available on 2.4GHz (about 11?) it wouldn't take too many devices to start cluttering them all up. When that happens and the devices try to hop channels to resolve that...yeah, throughput degrades.
There are issues even within one home for one premise user, and they have only recently been addressed by industry using "mesh routers" to redistribute signal within the premises. Instead of just blasting one stronger signal, they use multiple devices to pass the signal around. That would of course also work in a marina, but again, each device add$ to co$t$. For now, they ain't cheap, it can be an easy $200 per node. (That's possibly the multiple devices mentioned above.)

[Sailor_Hutch]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Dockhead-
Every repeater, or router, or mesh node, whatever you have to pass a signal on? Is going to put traffic on two more WiFi channels, since it needs to talk to the "source" on the original two channels, and talk locally on two different ones. And given the limited number of channels available on 2.4GHz (about 11?) it wouldn't take too many devices to start cluttering them all up. When that happens and the devices try to hop channels to resolve that...yeah, throughput degrades.
There are issues even within one home for one premise user, and they have only recently been addressed by industry using "mesh routers" to redistribute signal within the premises. Instead of just blasting one stronger signal, they use multiple devices to pass the signal around. That would of course also work in a marina, but again, each device add$ to co$t$. For now, they ain't cheap, it can be an easy $200 per node. (That's possibly the multiple devices mentioned above.)

A tech savvy hobbyist could cobble together a multiple node AP for smallish dollars (for the nodes themselves). It'd be the labor, interconnects, cabling, point-to-point data links, and assorted other miscellany that could add to the cost. Raspberry Pis come to mind. I use one of them myself for an AP. Dockhead mentioned they're doing it in England. So, I think it might work here as well (US).

The way I figure it:

1) You won't stop the big-guns and amp guys.
2) The big guns often use directional antennas

So, the multiple node architecture takes the big gun out of the S/N ratio. They're probably pointed at the marina office. The little guy wins. The big guy wins. Everyone wins.

[Sailor_Hutch]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Free wifi , the most useless statement that marinas made. Yes they have wifi, no it doesn't connect to the internet.

Why can hotels manage to provide internet to have mereds of rooms, but marinas can't???

I answered the last post, and forgot to answer the OP. Sorry! I've noticed in some hotels, that WiFi antennas are mounted on each floor. I suppose that because of the concrete and steel obstructions against RF, they use multiple heads, and divide and conquer the problem. So, they do it the way I just mentioned in the previous 2-3 posts.

[Sailor_Hutch]

In the first response, I should have differentiated between the bit rate (of the adapter) and the data rate relating to total thru-put. The bit rate would have an optimal value, based on the lay of the land (water), and the data rate would be throttled to some absolute value that allowed normal browsing, but probably not video. I mentioned the Pi, a little tongue-in-cheek i guess. I can run four or five low-to-moderately loaded surfing client boxes against my Pi, so I guess it compares favorably to the hypothetical Linksys sitting on the marina office desk. A half dozen of them would still be cheap, but maybe a little too cheap. Trying to appeal to the marina operator who runs a low budget. Anyway, I run a proxy on the Pi home-brew AP I use, which gives me a little more managerial power over connections.

If each node is expected to cover an area, then no special software is needed, other than open source AP software. Each node acts "stand alone" - and feeds back into the marina land connection.

[masonc]

The reason a hotel system is able to supply hundreds of guest and thousands of devices is they contract the design to experts who survey the building, taking signal strength readings, and who design and install commercial grade systems.
You can play around with your raspberry pi devices all day but you will never achieve the device capacity, throughput and reliability of a high end commercial system. In the early days, hotel techs tried to come up with their own home brews, but as WiFi became essential, the brands developed relationships with large vendors who contracted to provide solutions for the entire chain. I know this because I have been the local wiring installer for a Four Seasons resort and we had to work with the brand's WiFi contractor.
Commercial WiFi systems like Ruckus are built around central controllers, which constantly evaluate the noise, number of clients, available bandwidth, security and environmental issues, and modify the Access Points accordingly. Each Access Point is capable of wireless backhaul to counter lost connectivity, smart meshing, hundreds of clients at one time, multiple SSIDs, beaming, client bandwidth management, and a ton of other features. The controllers can update the firmware of every Access Point automatically.
That's how hotels can provide reliable WiFi. You can't get there from Linksys.

[Sailor_Hutch]

Originally Posted by masonc

The reason a hotel system is able to supply hundreds of guest and thousands of devices is they contract the design to experts who survey the building, taking signal strength readings, and who design and install commercial grade systems.
You can play around with your raspberry pi devices all day but you will never achieve the device capacity, throughput and reliability of a high end commercial system. In the early days, hotel techs tried to come up with their own home brews, but as WiFi became essential, the brands developed relationships with large vendors who contracted to provide solutions for the entire chain. I know this because I have been the local wiring installer for a Four Seasons resort and we had to work with the brand's WiFi contractor.
Commercial WiFi systems like Ruckus are built around central controllers, which constantly evaluate the noise, number of clients, available bandwidth, security and environmental issues, and modify the Access Points accordingly. Each Access Point is capable of wireless backhaul to counter lost connectivity, smart meshing, hundreds of clients at one time, multiple SSIDs, beaming, client bandwidth management, and a ton of other features. The controllers can update the firmware of every Access Point automatically.
That's how hotels can provide reliable WiFi. You can't get there from Linksys.

No doubt there's a ton of difference between the fix-your-own-chevy with bondo approach (raspberries), and the corporate franchise approach. Like I said, the Pi's were mentioned a little tongue-in-cheek. Unfortunately, I think many marina offices don't have a corporate franchise budget. That's probably why we have what we have.

[masonc]

Originally Posted by Sailor_Hutch

Like I said, the Pi's were mentioned a little tongue-in-cheek. Unfortunately, I think many marina offices don't have a corporate franchise budget. That's probably why we have what we have.

Don't get me wrong I love the raspberry Pi. I solved a major solar problem by building and programming a RPi to turn on and off an inverter based on state of charge data from the battery system, to limit power export. They can be a very powerful solution.

If marinas don't have the budget, then there's your problem. Cheap residential equipment will never handle hundreds of devices in a noisy outdoor scenario.
There are other, less expensive solutions, such as the Ubiquity systems. Some are good, and properly designed and installed, will be far better than putting a Linksys in the office.