High speed internet

T

tparrent

New member
I now have the ability to work remotely full time. My company also has very flexible hours so I have the potential of working early or late.

This has the potential to send me off cruising full time (or as much as I want anyway) a couple years earlier than expected as I could get in a solid five hours underway in the early morning before stopping to work a full day.

What do you use for high speed internet, especially at anchor? Cost is not really an issue as a good enough connection would allow me to work while traveling and I'd pay whatever I need to for that freedom!

I am not even sure how fast I need the connection to be. The actual computing is done on a remote computer and all I am doing is seeing the remote screen so I'm not downloading or uploading any data. I'll have to check with my IT staff on that.
 
Betty has been working off the boat for the last 2 months while we take the long way to Hontoon. We use a cell router from Nomad with an ATT SIM card. It’s been flawless except in some remote areas. We plan our route based on a map of cell towers locations. Only once have I had to backtrack to get her a better signal.

James
 
Here in the Pacific NW Verizon has the best coverage, it used to be ATT. T-Mobile is in the fight for best but not there yet. Our condo has metal coated high tech windows. ATT cannot get through them, T-Mobile does OK, Verizon is the best.

So the message is, it depends. It might be good to have more than one cell phone on different networks, but in any event, check with locals on what works in their area.
 
RobLL":12wv781r said:
Here in the Pacific NW Verizon has the best coverage, it used to be ATT. T-Mobile is in the fight for best but not there yet. Our condo has metal coated high tech windows. ATT cannot get through them, T-Mobile does OK, Verizon is the best.

So the message is, it depends. It might be good to have more than one cell phone on different networks, but in any event, check with locals on what works in their area.
Click to expand...

If you have an unlocked quad band phone, you can just get different sim cards. Although on some phones changing the sim card can be hard and/or fiddly.
 
We have used both AT&T cell phone and I pad with data. Also a Verizon Jet Pack, hot spot. Right now at Hontoon, we are doing better with Verizon. But a couple of days, I could not get any adequate up load or down load. We are about 4 miles from nearest cell towers. But there are dense woods between us and any tower.

We often Carry a Wilson (We Boost) cell phone amplifier and external antenna--then us this to the phone or hot spot.

Some use satellite--but that can be more expensive. If you want great data upload and down load then a satellite dish may be in the future.
 
watched that video. He stated that if you want unlimited data like you have at home you are looking at 3 to 5 THOUSAND a month for satellite.
 
starcrafttom":2bjnrron said:
watched that video. He stated that if you want unlimited data like you have at home you are looking at 3 to 5 THOUSAND a month for satellite.
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Problem with a satellite antenna on a small boat like a C-Dory is maintaining a lock. The boat probably moves (pitches and rolls) faster than the antenna can slew. Even at anchor, you probably can't move around the boat much and maintain the lock.
 
starcrafttom":1ph09pw0 said:
watched that video. He stated that if you want unlimited data like you have at home you are looking at 3 to 5 THOUSAND a month for satellite.
Click to expand...

I have no idea. I just remembered the video, so I posted it. Obviously, if it costs that much, your choice of boat would not be a C-Dory as you'd have enough wealth to afford something a tad bit more, uh, extravagant.
 
Here is the deal on Satellite:

1.) If you have a 43ft or larger boat,
2.) Are willing to invest about $25K or so into communications hardware, (Dish is minimum of 15" up to 39" diameter (plus dome--so add a few inches in width and height. Also up to 7 KW per day of energy use to keep the gyro spinning if in use 24 hours a day!
3.) Commit to at least $500/month in service fees, (If you want to stream video then $1,000 up to $2,500 in monthly fees.
 
Tom,

Maybe you don’t really need ‘high speed’ internet.

In our experience, Verizon offers the ‘widest’ (not 5G fastest) coverage for cruisers. We share a 15G data plan among two phones, two Kindles, a laptop and a tablet for $152/month. The most data intensive activity I do is upload HD photos to C-Brats (no video, streaming etc). We ran out of data 1 day, but we’ve been on the boat for over a month and use public wi fi when available (but not for financial transactions etc).

Verizon also offers an automatic very reasonable $15/24h daily coverage for Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas (including Eleuthera, the most far-out of the outer islands). We have 4 bars of 4G/LTE right now here at Hontoon without the booster. Other than the Everglades as James noted, the only places we’ve not had at least 3G Verizon coverage was in parts of Apalachicola and a small section of the Cumberland river mountains.

Your data needs may not be all that intensive to have to invest a lot in this issue.

Best,

John
 
Our experience has been similar to gulfcoast John's: using Verizon, coast to coast, traveling by boat and RV. Pacific Northwest to the Florida Keys, southern California to Maine. Everywhere in between. We use my phone as a hot spot when traveling. 3mbps is generally enough to do what we want for internet, other than streaming. 7mbps even allows streaming. Most of the time we have 7mbps or better. Best I've ever seen was 70mbps on Verizon, in sparsely populated eastern Arizona. In the San Juan Islands, where the closest Verizon cell tower is on Fidalgo Island, we used a weBoost powered antenna to generally get between 1 and 3mbps. Without the boost, it was slower than dial-up speeds. It is rare when traveling that we need to pull out the weBoost. Of course, going across west Texas, there are times with no coverage (a boost can't help when there is no signal).

I am grandfathered in with an unlimited data plan on Verizon, no evidence of being throttled. At home, we have good high speed internet via cable, generally 70 to 100mbps (just checked it now: 116mbps) and other than frequently streaming movies, there isn't much different we do than when traveling and using my phone as a hot spot.

Even when public wifi is available, we tend to stay with using our own data plan via the phone as a hot spot. I've visited with a few people living in their RV full-time, using satellite data - most have been less than happy with the speed and data caps per day.
 
My experience with Verizon is that the prepaid plans are often a better deal than the monthly contract plans (post paid).

I switched our plans from monthly to prepaid and got lots more data for less money. Verizon has to compete with companies like TracPhone in the prepaid market.
 
We have a 25 Gig Verizon via a "jet pack" thru a plan with Family Motor Coach Association for $50 a month. After the 25G it is supposedly throttled. Never found out.

At Hontoon, we are not as fortunate as John--our better internet is thru A T & T, where we get from 1 to 3 bars. Verizon is only 1 to 2 bars--we are about 150 feet away from John--location, location, location!
 
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