Rodney Myrvaagnes wrote:
On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:49:53 -0500, Jeff Morris
wrote:


Most marinas will allow you to send emails, some have wifi, etc. And of
course there are always cafes, etc. If you stay in touch with friends
& family by email when land based, then you will want to do that while
cruising. If you like to use a phone, find the best cellular plan for
your trip. You can also send emails by cell phone.


I find that marinas with hookup for an old-fashioned dial-up modem are
less common. I will have to get a more modern machine with wifi and
ethernet connections before next season.


Many marinas will let you use their second phone line (usually used for
credit cards) for brief email checks. Maybe now that they can charge
for wifi use they push that instead.



However, your last sentence caught my eye. I know when I first got a
cel phone, maybe six years ago, it could browse only web sites
translated by th eprovider, and couldn't be used for normal modem
acccess.

Is that different now, or are you talking about special ISP accounts
at the cellular company? I don't want to read email on a cellphone,
but if it will act as or with a modem for the laptop that would do me.


Actually, I was thinking of text messaging for short emails, and pocket
mail for somewhat larger messages. Neither are as nice as real email,
but they're enough to let people know you're alive.

Sprint has a system where the phone can be wired to a computer and it
serves as a modem. My friend claims it was rated at 140 kbaud, and
actually did about 110 kbaud. It is geared towards phone only use but
works with a computer. The plan my friend has is a $10 surcharge on top
of the $39 plan, however, I think they have "wised up" and now charge a
much larger premium for computers. However, for some the fees would be
worth it. I noticed the Sprint unlimited data business plan is $80 per
month. But ATT has "unlimited mmode" for $25 that might work with one
of those new phones with a keyboard. But ATT has been bought by
Cingular and their system is down now ...

Verizon has plans where a limited amount of online time can be combined
with phone minutes so that limited surfing can be economical.

One more thing - I've never done it but a number of people have said
they can connect at about 9600 baud using analog on a cell phone.