Wi-Fi on boats

[Leisure 27]

The Wi-Fi in my marina does not connect a lot of the time. I have a Netgear dongle connected to o2. This also does not connect and is slow at times. O2 says I have a good connection here in Plymouth. What is the best way to get Wi-Fi on a boat?

 

[ip485]

I use a Redbox. It works very well.

Advantages - the connection is then available to anyone on board via the usual WiFi connection to the RedBox and you can do all sorts of stuff to limit the amount of use. It aslo offers WiFi and 3/4G in one package. The ability to use external aerials of your choice also mean you can use a very high gain omni directional or even a directional aerial. It is supplied for connecting to WiFi, and the sim is an add on. You can also connect a sat phone should you wish.

The downside is I guess cost.

However it is quite an elegant solution and nice to have a box which contains the sim for the 3/4G part that is very easy to change.

 

[pvb]

I just set my phone up as a hotspot. Sometimes place the phone up on deck if the signal is poor.

 

[wayfarer8088]

Our wifi setup is illustrated in the attached pdf. The Teltonika router has 3G/4G sim card(s) but defaults to the wifi connection from the Bullet when available. Probably less expensive than Redbox but could be a pita to configure if you're not familiar with networking. Works well though!

 

[lustyd]

If it's a yacht then you may want to install something like I described in this thread. Similar to Wayfarer8088 but without the bullet
Wifi on board

 

[LadyInBed]

I have a Netgear dongle connected to o2

Is O2 the strongest network for the area? It might be worth asking around and buy a data only sim for a network with a better signal.

 

[ip485]

I just set my phone up as a hotspot. Sometimes place the phone up on deck if the signal is poor.

Problem is I dont think you can stream WiFi from one phone to others and the O/P was referring to WiFi. You can of course stream 3/4G in this way.

The "problem" with both WiFi and 3/4G is often there is a signal but it is poor so by the time you are down below it doesnt work. The advanatage of good external aerials is you can use a really poor signal. My iphone may have for example one bar and 5 WiFi connections, whereas the Redbox will "see" 5 bars and 50 WiFi connections.

I find it is very rare there isnt one or the other available and offshore I expect a good signal a good ten miles out.

I dont think the Redbox is any particular magic there are plenty of good routers with WiFi and Sim; the key is partnering with good external aerials. However, the redbox is quite a good package that combines them all if you find this more simple.

The other advantage I quite like is usually once one person has logged into a source, others dont need to, and you can swap between sources seamlessly.

 

[SpottyDog5]

When we used to be a semi liveaboard, we bought a unit from these guys: www.Wifionboard .co.uk
Worked out what mobile provider had the best coverage in our marina, in our case it was EE.
Bought a data sim, at the time £20 for 30 GB per month, cheaper now.
We used to stream movies/ TV, run our ipads and phones, never once run out of data.
Just reading the post above, I too had a beefy external aerial.

 

[prv]

Problem is I dont think you can stream WiFi from one phone to others and the O/P was referring to WiFi.

Not easily, but I suspect that by “WiFi” the OP just meant an internet connection of any kind. An increasing number of people seem to use it that way nowadays.

Pete

 

[davidaprice]

On the Finnish coast most places have good 3G/4G reception. Tied up to islands in the archipelago you'll often have insufficient reception on the boat, but good reception from the top of the island. One useful trick is setting your phone to hotspot mode and then hoisting it up the mast. But it's a bit of a faff, so something like this looks promising: Glomex WeBBoat 4G. This has 3G, 4G & WiFi antennas, and a WiFi router, and can be installed on the mast needing only 12V power. Reviews put me off, saying that its 3G & 4G antennas weren't as effective as a good smartphone's, but it's still tempting. I'd like the boat to have its own WiFi network, and taking phone calls is a pain when the phone is at the top of the mast.

 

[lustyd]

The glomex is just a branded version of the Teltonika kit I mentioned and costs three times as much. Obviously it’s all packaged ready to bolt to the boat but that’s a lot of cash for the convenience!

 

[ip485]

Glomex WeBBoat 4G. This has 3G, 4G & WiFi antennas, and a WiFi router, and can be installed on the mast needing only 12V power. Reviews put me off, saying that its 3G & 4G antennas weren't as effective as a good smartphone's, but it's still tempting. I'd like the boat to have its own WiFi network, and taking phone calls is a pain when the phone is at the top of the mast.

I considered this.

I think for people moving around then the ability to quickly change sims is very useful. (For example if you are cruising between countries). The problem with many of these systems is the sim is with the dome which often means up the mast or top of the arch.

I appreciate there are cost savings having the sim and aerial very close, but at the loss of considerable convenience.

 

[lustyd]

Reviews put me off, saying that its 3G & 4G antennas weren't as effective as a good smartphone's

Sorry I missed this earlier until ip485 quoted it. The antennas are considerably more effective than those in a mobile phone, the issue is almost certainly that the RUT240 inside the case is a category 4 LTE device compared to the phone being category 12 or higher. This means that the phone has access to more bandwidth and so while it works it appears more effective. The important thing to grasp here is that "while it works" is going to be less consistent on the phone. My Teltonika (and I assume therefore the Glomex) will manage 15Mbps very consistently which is sufficient for two people to watch different streaming movies on board. The phone can often sustain 40-50Mbps, but then will fail in an anchorage to get any signal at all. The reviews are concentrating on the wrong kind of testing because raw speed is the simplest thing to measure. You'll also get better latency on the mobile because there are fewer hops in the route, but again that's not relevant to actual usage of the connection on board a boat.

 

[RobbieW]

Our wifi setup is illustrated in the attached pdf. The Teltonika router has 3G/4G sim card(s) but defaults to the wifi connection from the Bullet when available. Probably less expensive than Redbox but could be a pita to configure if you're not familiar with networking. Works well though!

I have a setup very similar, in concept anyway, to yours, except that the Bullet is very very rarely used now. The current boat router is a GLiNet AR750 running the ROOter variant of OpenWRT, ROOter by Of Modems and Men. I use ROOter because it is constantly being upgraded to keep up with modem development so will handle the current crop of 5G modems, mostly M2 or PCIE modules, as well as being back compatible with 3/4G units.

Mobile connectivity comes from a dongle, an E3276, mounted with velcro near the router. I've rarely found that I've had no signal with that setup around the Med or in the UK. I also now have a USB module that will take M2/PCIE modems, currently with an EM7455 (cat 6), as an upgrade path.

For remote mounting of anything I much prefer ethernet as the connection medium. USB can suffer volt drop for much over 5 metres; the size and inflexibility of decent coax make it difficult to work with

 

[Elessar]

When we used to be a semi liveaboard, we bought a unit from these guys: www.Wifionboard .co.uk
Worked out what mobile provider had the best coverage in our marina, in our case it was EE.
Bought a data sim, at the time £20 for 30 GB per month, cheaper now.
We used to stream movies/ TV, run our ipads and phones, never once run out of data.
Just reading the post above, I too had a beefy external aerial.

It's not just about best coverage. You need enough signal strength for sure but more than enough won't give you more speed. With a mast top aerial signal strength isn't normally the limiting factor. The network speed is what matters. In that regard EE is the fastest by a margin. They are painful to deal with - simply awful service in an industry that doesn't set the bar high - but they have the best data speed so I tolerate them.

 

[girlofwight]

The glomex is just a branded version of the Teltonika kit I mentioned and costs three times as much. Obviously it’s all packaged ready to bolt to the boat but that’s a lot of cash for the convenience!

And as I learned to my cost recently, has a significantly cut down user interface compared to the Teltonika OEM one, which makes configuration a nuisance.

 

[Stemar]

Might be helpful

 

[lustyd]

Excruciatingly expensive though!

 

[Quiddle]

I'm looking at installing a fixed system but meanwhile use this with a usb extension cable for boosting marina wifi which works very well with a PC.
I have a metal boat and the strong signal on deck virtually disappears below but by hanging this antenna off the boom all is well.
Windows 10 allows wifi sharing for other devices and the antenna is treated as a 2nd wifi adapter.