Best of the ISP-Lists

Wireless Ahoy!

Members of the ISP-Wireless list discuss providing Internet access to marinas and to those at sea.

On the ISP-Wireless list in October, EH offered,

"I'm looking into providing wireless Internet access for a bunch of marinas in the Tampa Bay area. Any thoughts?"

A number of respondents suggested that it's not a bad idea:

[RS observed] "Living on the water, I often see the million dollar yachts going by. This could be a huge market. Offering high-speed access at marinas should be a big money maker: something like $10 a night would be an easy sell. There are some issues that would need to be addressed, though. Would you rent the cards at each marina? Who would do the accounting (charge their credit card, take a deposit, etc.)? Who would be available for tech support if they had trouble? Would you expect the marina to purchase a block of usage, and let them worry about the details?"

[FA added] "I assume that most marinas that cater to the big boys already offer cable and telephone hookups just like RV parks—but any wires and connectors in a marina are a huge problem (especially in salt water), so wireless makes sense."

[JR agreed] "This is really a no-brainer. Most of the boats are wood and fiberglass, so penetration into the boat should be good. Set up a user authentication box and have it be part of the slip charge. Something like $6.95 a day, $12.50 a week, $39.95 a month." Others took the idea one step further and wondered about setting up access along the coastline:

[AM enthused] "Offering broadband to boaters would be a great service. You could dot the coastline every 30 miles or so with small towers and provide coastline coverage within 10-20 miles out. I know the cell phone and helicopter business is good down in South Louisiana with the oil rig business, and I'm sure wireless is a perfect application for getting instrumentation and data between rigs back to headquarters."

[KW countered] "Satellite's a better option for this. Dish Network will be doing Internet services soon via a satellite dish, and you can get satellite tracking now for $4,000. I live on the coast of North Carolina, and the boats we see here cost sometimes in excess of 4 million dollars, so $4,000 isn't a whole lot to them."

Finally, SS noted that many of these services are already out there:

"A lot of people are doing this already:

• Check out www.eharbor.org.
• Globe Wireless, at www.globewireless.com, also does email over Marine HF radio.
• Inmarsat, at www.inmarsat.org, provides Internet access via satellite almost anywhere in the world.
• Orbcomm, at www.orbcomm.com, does handheld satellite-based email.
• GlobalStar, at www.globalstar.com, is in the process of developing handheld satellite phone and low speed data service."

—End

 

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