Internet access aboard?

[royntracey]

Hi all

As we sail from Nassau to the southern out islands, sending and receiving emails is hard work, especially the further south you go.

I'm just wondering if anyone has internet (or email) access on thier Macs, and if so how did you do it?

We sail with 2 laptops (for working offline)

Any ideas or experience about hardware/software,ISP,packages, etc
would be good.
thanks
Roy and Tracey

[Catigale]

Im very happy with my Verizon CMDA network inland, but it wont work internationally...

They do make GPS GRSM type cards which should work on an international cell network...Sierra for example.

[Scott]

For work in our laptops we have cingular broadband (not quite broadband, but tolerable) pcmcia cards. In our pocket pc's we have gprs. Being cell based the utility would be dependent on coverage.

[Duane Dunn, Allegro]

We just returned from spending the last 3 nights out on our first trip with my Blackberry 7100t. I'm really impressed with these for such a small handheld device. I get all my email on it, both company and personal. It's easy to read and reply. You can even view MS Office attachments and PDF's. It also has a full web browser. Surf new sites, weather sites, even tide and currents sites, any thing on the web. All come across very well including all the graphics like tide curves, or weather radar. Transfer speeds are the equivilant of a good dial up connection.

My 7100 is the smallest of the blackberry's with two letters per key and an uncanny ability to know what word you are typing as you press the single button with two letters on it. I love the crisp color screen it has. There are slightly larger ones that have a easier single letter per key keyboards.

It is Tri band GSM/GPRS. Mine's T-Mobile but you can get the same from Cingular. Works anywhere they have digital service. We have folks from our company that travel the world all over Europe, Asia, South America, even the Middle East. They get good service most places. GSM/GPRS is implemented even more overseas than in the US.

It only cost $199 (bought by the company of course) and I find their lowest service option, 1000 any time minutes and unlimited data transfer to be more than enough at $59.99 a month (also paid for by the company).

You can even use the Phone connected with a USB cable to the laptop as a modem. Their sync software works great with both Outlook and Lotus Notes.

Finally everything is in one portable device that works most everywhere. My calendar, contacts, tasks, notes, email, and the web; plus a nice photo album, a password vault, and many more downloadable applications. It even has Instant messaging with AOL, Yahoo or ICQ. A great boating solution.

[BK]

Can you pay bills with this Blackberry? Sounds like this is just like a mobile phone and does not need to be close to a wireless station? Why would anyone pay for a wireless station with a laptop?
BTW, we travel a lot and thanks to Bill Gates of Microsoft every library in the US, even in the San Juans, has a free internet.

[royntracey]

Thanks guys
As usual this board has the answers, must say the Blackberry sounds good, althought the system is still analogue in the southern out islands, Batelco have promised digital coverage in the next month (or two)
This may be our solution.
Thanks again
Roy and Tracey

[richandlori]

I second Duane's comments about the new cell phone/PDA technology, although I have the PalmOne Treo with the Web features activated. It is great to not only send/receive email, but also surf the net for weather or buy items on Ebay that I jsut dropped overboard ! I travel the country for work, and have great coverage anywhere there is digital service.

Rich

[Catigale]

The one drawback of the Blackberry approach is you get a PDA web access which not all websites handle gracefully.

a cell phone with an internet connection (Im partial to the Verizon CDMA network with a 115k connection in the Northeast) gives you full internet connectivity.

When I was caught on Lake Ontario, I hooked up and accessed wundergrounds active radar site and saw I had 30 minutes before a thunder head came rolling through..

Im sure you can access weather reports on a RIM type solution, but I love seeing the radar when conditions are in question.

If anyone knows good weather sites that are RIM compatible please post!!

[Scott]

http://cellphones.engadget.com/entry/1234000747026136/

This is a link to the one we use. Unlike palms or office compatible solutions this OS has full Microsoft office loaded. Seamless integration and editing in word and full blown excel.

It also handles Web pages really well. My only complaint would be it wont handle tags in html editing and no muliple browser option, oh yeah and no alt/tab multi-tasking.

Yes, I do my banking and E-bill pay on it, full blown outlook also.

Im laying in bed as I type posting this. Wifi that is.

Last complaint. While my company did buy it and foots the bill, I own the company so no savings realized there. It has taken me a while to integrate it into my business day, but 4 mo's later its near indespensable.

[Scott]

http://cellphones.engadget.com/entry/1234000747026136/

This is a link to the one we use. Unlike palms or office compatible solutions this OS has full Microsoft office loaded. Seamless integration and editing in word and full blown excel.

It also handles Web pages really well. My only complaint would be it wont handle tags in html editing and no muliple browser option, oh yeah and no alt/tab multi-tasking.

Yes, I do my banking and E-bill pay on it, full blown outlook also.

Im laying in bed as I type posting this. Wifi that is.

Last complaint. While my company did buy it and foots the bill, I own the company so no savings realized there. It has taken me a while to integrate it into my business day, but 4 mo's later its near indespensable.