Internet in far away areas?

[softdown]

Spending an hour/day watching youtubes of liveaboards, I wonder where they get their internet connection. One fellow was paying $1.50/hour for Cuban internet cards that allowed usage. That would get expensive fast.

How about Hughes satellite? Is that global? Everyone says it is slow. Yet it is the only thing available in many remote locations.

The more I think about it, the more attractive it becomes to spend a lot of time around the Keys. . Until hurricane season anyway. Life without Costco worries me a bit.

[bvander]

Cruising not for everyone.
Must be able to survive at times with limited connectivity, no box stores and occasionally no cell service.

[boatman61]

Just about every Café/Bar/Restaurant (that most cruisers would use) around the world has Internet these days.. just go in, order a drink/coffee and sandwich whatever and get the password.
Or get a local Sim.. Cuba is expensive as its only recently kicked in and is controlled.
Bloggers do all their video editing etc offline then just post it from a 'Free' location I'd imagine.
I was paying 5euro/GB in Spain for on the boat access.

[wyb2]

Originally Posted by boatman61

...
Or get a local Sim.. Cuba is expensive as its only recently kicked in and is controlled.
...
I was paying 5euro/GB in Spain for on the boat access.

This is our (tentative) plan for internet on the boat. Many places I've been outside the states it seems like pre-loaded GSM SIM cards are very common. Seems easy enough to keep a hot-spot compatible unlocked GSM phone and buy as much (or as little) data as you want as you go along. As long as you keep your usage reasonable, should be way cheaper than carrying an international data plan.

Sounds like it works in Spain. Anyone have experience doing this in the Caribbean?

[a64pilot]

Unless your a serious money bags, forget Satellite internet. I mean serious money, I think thousands per month maybe?
Best bet I think is cellular and a booster, maybe. I have a Wirie Pro, not sure it was worth the $$ yet though.
Wifi range extender hasn't improved anything I can tell, and so far in the US, the phone's hotspot feature has worked well so no need for the cell portion of the thing yet, maybe that will change in the Bahamas though

[Pete7]

Fleet broadband is about $18 per Mb. Won't be many cruisers who can afford that.

Inmarsat FleetBroadband

Inmarsat FleetBroadband Airtime (Post Pay) - Communication - MailASail

[Sea Dreaming]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Unless your a serious money bags, forget Satellite internet. I mean serious money, I think thousands per month maybe?
Best bet I think is cellular and a booster, maybe. I have a Wirie Pro, not sure it was worth the $$ yet though.
Wifi range extender hasn't improved anything I can tell, and so far in the US, the phone's hotspot feature has worked well so no need for the cell portion of the thing yet, maybe that will change in the Bahamas though

We have the wirie pro in Mexico. We have been very pleased with it. However, signal must be line of sight so there are plenty of places where it's not useful. But it does make nearly useless signals useful. : )

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by bvander

Cruising not for everyone.
Must be able to survive at times with limited connectivity, no box stores and occasionally no cell service.

Cruising is not for everyone.

Or put in another way "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

And that's kinda what makes cruising great ☺

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Sea Dreaming

We have the wirie pro in Mexico. We have been very pleased with it. However, signal must be line of sight so there are plenty of places where it's not useful. But it does make nearly useless signals useful. : )

I haven't really put it to use yet, gut feeling is the best feature with it won't become apparent until I get a sim card in it and start using the cell portion, we haven't left yet and the phone works fine so I have not done it yet.
Wifi in my Marina is absolutely useless, I though the booster would help, but it didn't, just crap Wifi, 24/7 day, night weekends doesn't matter. Same with their TV cable, signal is so bad its not usable, sort of false advertising in a way.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by softdown

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Life without Costco worries me a bit.

Almost reminds me of the couple who lived on a remote island. They'd go shopping once a month. They got home one night, and Betsy says to Ron: "You doofus, you forgot the gallon of rum! How am I gonna get along with you for the next 40 days without my wee dram every night?!?"

Look, being self-reliant has a lot of different angles to it.

Things are "different" when you're "out there."

When we brought our boat up from SF to Vancouver Island last summer, we spent an enjoyable five days in Lapush, WA before the weather calmed down enough for us to round Cape Flattery. We had AT&T phones, all they had there was Verizon. And no pay phones in town, with no wireless in the marina. What were we to do?!? How could we possibly survive? We did, no big deal. When we rounded the Cape and pulled into Neah Bay, same thing, but the marina let us use their phone to call home and tell the family we were OK. On the way up we used marina wifi and the phone as a hotspot. The biggest drawback was missing the marine forecast, but we got it from the harbormaster and the CG. Others have VHF cruisers nets every day, or you learn weather yourself.

You are no longer at home.

Get over it.

We have an Alpha with a powered USB extender. Only helps with weak wifi signals in marina where they give you the pw, since 99% of wifi signals are encrypted anyway so no free lunch anymore, been that way for 10 years now.

Many, many blogs cover communications. You need to do some more homework and research. Been discussed here on this forum hundreds of times. Look in the electronics & communications sections.

[zeehag]

i want sea dreamings wirie pro.
i use marina internet and i use telkcel 4g service, which does n ot allow much usage...only 4 g of 4g service monthly.
i donot do videos. i do load pix occasionally. when i have adecent connection, which does not exist at the marina i am now occupying.

leave your red shoesies home-- there is no kansas out here....

[softdown]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Just about every Café/Bar/Restaurant (that most cruisers would use) around the world has Internet these days.. just go in, order a drink/coffee and sandwich whatever and get the password.
Or get a local Sim.. Cuba is expensive as its only recently kicked in and is controlled.
Bloggers do all their video editing etc offline then just post it from a 'Free' location I'd imagine.
I was paying 5euro/GB in Spain for on the boat access.

Nice, reasoned response.....thank you. Many people drive me nuts, I do not plan to use slips and moors when avoidable. Easy to do with a good dinghy though internet connectivity will be problematic.

Preparing to go liveaboard is really quite a challenge. Giving myself 2-3 years and still feel a bit rushed. Just bought a 26' S2 for experience with a medium sized sailboat. Now to get it from San Francisco to southern Colorado! Good times!

[DMCantor]

In the Caribbean, we use a MiFi device. This is a data-only link to the cell-phone system, you get a local WiFi link as long as you are in cell-phone range. Digicel will sell you a prepaid SIM card that works equally well on Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia and Dominica, or another SIM card that works on St. Kitts&Nevis, Antigua, Anguilla. You can also get SIMS that work on Guadeloupe, Martinique, or St. Martin. This solution gives us much better bandwidth than trying to connect to the WiFi hotspots. Even WiFi in restaurants can be excruciatingly slow.

[hamburking]

Originally Posted by wyb2

This is our (tentative) plan for internet on the boat. Many places I've been outside the states it seems like pre-loaded GSM SIM cards are very common. Seems easy enough to keep a hot-spot compatible unlocked GSM phone and buy as much (or as little) data as you want as you go along. As long as you keep your usage reasonable, should be way cheaper than carrying an international data plan.

Sounds like it works in Spain. Anyone have experience doing this in the Caribbean?

Thats how they were doing it in Antigua when i was there. Sims were available everywhere...bars, stores, marina office...$20 each.

[dberdou]

Hello
interesting post since many of us need internet access for work while travelling
I plan to liveaboard soon and found this product
https://miowifi.com/en/coverage/
looks interesting and will probably try it
anyone in the forum knows about it?
any further recommendations?
thanks for your input
rgds
daniel