"Skip Gundlach" wrote
in ink.net:

Hi, Geoff, and group,

"Geoffrey W. Schultz" wrote in message
7.77...
"Skip Gundlach"
wrote in ink.net:
We're considering something which would require us to have high
speed access and perhaps a power supply available...

If you're counting on high speed then you had better forget cruising
or transform your cruising plans into moving from marina to marina.
Either that or pony up for ISDN access via onboard satellite.

I've not seen any such opportunities - can you point me to some? And
marinas are nearly certainly unlikely, let alone regular, experiences,
other than occasional haulouts, so that's never entered our minds.

If you're just looking at doing Voice Over IP (VOIP), ISDN isn't what
you're looking for as rates for that start at about $7.50/min. Check
InmarSat if you're interested.


Most cybercafes in the Caribbean utilize satellite based broadband
for their access and this has terrible propagation delays (about 3/4
of a second end to end I believe). Once you get the data streaming,
you're in good shape, but if you use something that requires a lot of
hand- shaking, forget it. For example, I can only retrieve about 10
e-mail messages per minute via POP via satellite. Another issue is
that the satellite links can be heavily over-subscribed, leading to
large packet losses. Also, outages are frequent due to equipment
problems, weather, etc, etc.

Overall, if you're trying to run a business that requires high speed
access from a boat, don't rely on Caribbean Cybercafes.

Heh. No business - other than a congenital defect which keeps Lydia
umbilically attached to her adult children - and not from the boat,
which is the reason for the cybercafé question.

Satellite from the boat isn't currently feasible, at least as far as
I've found, other than via dialup over one of the satphones, which is
*way* too pricy for communication as far as I'm concerned. OTOH,
sailcharbonneau.com has a good exposition on why it's right for them,
so different strokes, and all that.

What we're looking at, and I brought up earlier, before knowing what I
do today, is internet phones. Basically an interface, it has an IP,
and uses either 64 or 128k (your choice) of bandwidth to feed a POTS
2-wire phone. You make and receive calls just like you were at home
(where you'd plug into your cable or DSL or other high-speed access),
including the number, which follows the instrument. It takes 12v
power from a wall wart, but I don't know the wattage, which would
determine the staying power of some battery kludge (which might be
easy enough to whip up). And, it's pass through, which means that we
could be doing computer stuff in the background while it wasn't being
used, and if the bandwidth would support it, one on the computer (most
likely me) and the other (most likely her) on the phone.

At the price of internet café vs international calls, it seems like a
great tradeoff. Prices for local (your general area) are in the 25/mo
range, and national/Canada in the 35/mo range, unlimited calling, and
along the same lines as the cheapest current services to call
internationally (e.g. 2cents/minute UK, Hong Kong, where relatives
live now) as additional costs.

The trick would be to find places to plug in, every so often...

Thanks for your input on the NW Carib - any others in other Carib or
Atlantic basin outside the continental US?

I would think that if a Cybercafe could offer VOIP, they would and I
don't know if they would let you use your own equipment over their
network. On top of that they probably have Quality of Service (QOS)
metrics set up for their machines to insure that their VOIP traffic gets
priority over the normal traffic that's flowing over the network. As I
mentioned the propagation delays associated with satellites may make
this unusable, or highly choppy at best.

Quite honestly your best bet is probably an Iridium or GlobalStar phone
at $1+ a minute. You might be able to find better rates through
GlobalStar if you roam in areas local to the US.

In Guatemala you can by a cell phone from, believe it or not, Bell South
that gives you $0.12/min calls to the US.

-- Geoff