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Sunday, October 24, 2010

The Internet issue

So we'll hopefully be leaving very soon, and it is about time to find out which Internet solution to go for. We would be very very happy if everyone who has an insight, could give us a glance of their experience regarding this matter. Please let us know if you have answers to any of the questions below:

What we want: A stable Internet connection with which we can get online for daily necessities. We want to be able to receive emails, send emails and upload the blog. The blog will probably be updated with email (text plus image) with minimum weight on around 150-200KB per day.

What we're evaluating are these options:

Option 1: SSB Radio with Pactor modem, coupled with Sailmail software - or is there other options? Can Gmail for example work well with the Pactor? Cost for the SSB/Pactor package 4.000 Euros plus annual fee to sailmail 200 Euros. For this price we'll have 12 minutes of free connecting time. The problem, as far as we've understood, is that it is not possible to send emails with attachments. Is this correct? Is this because you can't make it in 12 minutes or is it totally impossible to send email with attachments? I mean, if we pay extra minutes, could we send emails with images or is it out of the question due to limitations in the software, hardware or the connection? If it is possible, what does the extra minutes connected, cost? Have any of you guys sent images through the SSB radio and does it work properly? How does it work on let's say, the Atlantic. We do understand that text based emails are easy to send from wherever, but to also be able to send images are very important for us. 

Option 2: Sailor 150 fleet broadband. We will be able to connect to the Internet basically from where ever in the world. Might be distortions on the big oceans? Is the connection reliable on the Atlantic, for example? Cost for this installation will be 6.500 Euros. Added to that will be the usage, 11 Euros/MB. More or less how many MB would we consume when we quickly want to connect to the email software (gmail for example), receive emails, send textbased emails, and also send one email to blogger with attachment (attachment/photo around 150 KB), send it and log out? Does anyone have a clue? 

Option 3: Which is not really an option, but more of an addition to all this. The long range wifi receiver. This will be used when we're close to the shorelines and can pick up wifi from land. Price 200-300 Euros. Which brand should we go for?

So we've figured that we want to send minimum one blog post per day coupled with one lightweight photo. This when crossing the oceans. Once we're on islands, close to shore, on land - we'll use the long range wifi, local prepaid Internet card or other free wifi connections in coffee shops etc.. We would love to be as free from coffee shops as possible and we're now looking for the most comfortable options for this world tour.

As you can see we're still a bit lost and we'll need to have made a decision no later than tomorrow, Monday. Please let us know your thoughts if you have any. How have you other cruisers done?

FYI: We'll be using our Spanish wireless Internet modem all the way to the Canaries, with some smaller exceptions when in Gibraltar and Morocco. So until end of November we're all set.

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