On Sat, 09 Jan 2010 15:16:55 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:24:11 -0600, Richard Casady
wrote:

On Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:17:41 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:00:09 -0600, Richard Casady
wrote:

I have a wireless modem that will work on a cruise ship a thousand
miles from land. No extra charge. Same address in the headers
everywhere.

Tell us more.

Who makes it? How does it communicate? Model # ?
Price ?

Forty bucks. In the offshore case something was going on that involved
the ships radio gear and satellites. Might as well be magic, there was
no extra charge from the phoneco or the ship.

Casady

In other words, you got lucky. I've been on several cruise ships in
the last few years and they all had satellite internet available at
about $1/minute. They also have their own onboard WiFi systems but
all that I've seen were secured. It sounds like your boat also had
their own cellular system but it's possible that you were in a US port
at the time and connecting the regular way. I've been able to do
that in Puerto Rico and the USVI using my regular aircard.

I was not in a port a thousand miles offshore. The cell phone worked
fine all the way to Hawaii and back. I could call the wife from
anywhere on the ship to anywhere on the ship. They had phone calls
from the room phone to Des Moines or wherever for a couple of bucks a
minute, but the cell phone worked for free. Like I said, it must have
been magic because there was nothing extra from either the cell phone
provider or the ship. We have gone on several Holland-America cruises,
including one from the US to the sea north of Norway to Amsterdam. The
sun didn't set for about four days, not until the ship was below the
Arctic circle. The ship did Caribbean in the Winter and Europe in the
Summer and you can get a no-fly Atlantic crossing if you time it
right. All of their ships have a bar with three floor to ceiling glass
walls. Direct above the pilothouse as a matter of fact. They call
those bars the Crows Nest and all their ships have them. Much better
view than the one the mere Captain has.

Casady