GPRS help me please!

[roger]

I'm trying to understand how to communicate with friends and family via the net while sitting in my boat in one of several Scandinavian countries next year. GPRS or 3G equipping a cheapish laptop seems the best way.
However I do not understand the systems and I have a nasty feeling I need a separate subscription for each country I visit.
Anyone got any ideas on how I should approach the topic.
I do know I can use the public libraries for nothing but theres often quite a long wait and in any case the library isnt on my boat.
Thanks for your thoughts

<hr width=100% size=1>Roger

 

[Talbot]

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.taniwha.org.uk/gprs.html>This Site</A> may be able to give you what you want.

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[boatone]

This reply by 3G........

Ive tried to use gprs for a few months now and my feelings have been dominated by frustration. Getting a connection can be infuriatingly slow, when u do get one drop outs seem far too frequent and contention rate when other users trying to do same can drag alleged increase in speed back to well sub dial up rates.

Have just last week got new 3G data card form Orange and what a difference! Much quicker - although they do say can drop back to 128kb if busy. Main problem now is coverage. I have been experimening a little. Appears device shows blue led when in 3g connect mode and green led in GPRS. As you move in and out of 3g coverage its supposed to seamlessy drop in and out of GPRS but not sure about that yet. Apppears that last night I was in an area not 3G coverage(disappointing as moored up at Hampton Court well within M25}.
I am now a little further downriver at Kingston and in 3G coverage and def much smoother and quicker. One thing must definitely do is disable show pictures in browser.....not only to speed up but also cos all traffic charged by data transfer, not time connected. I pay £20 month plus VAT for 65Mb.
Overall feeling is that 3G finally starts to cut the mustard but coverage still a very unknown quantity.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.boatsontheweb.com/> Website, Photo Gallery, Chat Room, Burgees</A>

 

[Lizzie_B]

friends of mine also went down the 3g route for their year out cruise in the Med. After all sorts of frustration for about the first three days trying to get connection and several calls to Vodafone who seem to have forgotten to activate the roaming feature on the SIM it worked well. They are also charged for the data they send and receive, so really important to impress upon friends and relatives to minimize their traffic and keep it short. They also continued their normal email account for sending and receiving long messages likenews update to everyone and pictures via internet cafes.

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[pragmatist]

HWMBO looked up UK coverage for 3g and said it was major cities only. Your story of the Med sounds rather diffent. Anyone know about 3g coverage in the Med, Baltic etc ?

<hr width=100% size=1>a pragmatist is an optimist with a boat in the UK - but serious about not being in the UK !

 

[pragmatist]

Roger

My reading is that if you want to do anything of any significance you really need 3g - which if there were coverage would work at up to about 350 kbps (well so they say) whereas typically GPRS (2g) is supposed to work up to 56kbps but is reported by reputable sources to rarely run above 20kbps - i.e. half the speed of a bad dial-up landline.

If you type this into Google there are some interesting results :

3g coverage scandinavia

Norway - http://www.dmeurope.com/default.asp?ArticleID=1186

But should we believe any of them ? <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/12/14/3gs_rubbish/>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/12/14/3gs_rubbish/</A>

If anyone out there has real experience of what coverage there is I too would love to know - UK or the Baltic or the Med.

We'd like to spend more time on the boat but are currently constrained by the 4-letter word and poor comms. As soon as you get just a short distance offshore or away from a town the mobile phone coverage disappears - which is a problem for us.

I was wondering, if I were to put a form up on one of our web sites, would people be prepared to report the coverage (mobile phone, network, GPRS, 3g etc) ? Then I could build a database and report back - or even at some stage web interrogation so we could all find out if we could both sail and work/keep in touch. Views v welcome.


<hr width=100% size=1>a pragmatist is an optimist with a boat in the UK - but serious about not being in the UK !

 

[Lizzie_B]

vodafone3g was fine in Brittany (treguier/ploum'nach/morlaix/L'Aberwrach) and Corunna, Gibraltar,Spanish Mediterranean Coast and Balearics,even in some of the more isolated calas where we were expecting a problem. Have left friends now but they have not reported any problems. Next time they're in touch I will ask them for details of how they're continuing to get on. As I say, there were a lot of initial frustrations in getting started, but once the gremlins were ironed out seemed to work ok.

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[pragmatist]

Sounds great - and not what I've found on the web. If it weren't for the weather I'd be off then ! Any further news gratefully anticipated.

<hr width=100% size=1>a pragmatist is an optimist with a boat in the UK - but serious about not being in the UK !

 

[John_Lana]

We have used GPRS in the Med for the past three years, and for us it has worked well. Not tried it in Scandanavia though.... What we have found though is that not all operators have roaming agreements in all countries. Check that your operating company has a roaming agreement with the countries you want to visit.
We have found that more and more marinas are offering WiFi connections - generally speaking these connections are much cheaper and often much quicker than GPRS. Maybe take a WiFi card with you as well?
Not tried 3G yet, but the feeling is that it will be a while before there is widespread coverage of the more remote cruising areas.......

John


<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.john-lana.com>http://www.john-lana.com</A> Mainly about boats, but also a bit about my other toy, my Caterham 7

 

[roger]

Many thanks for your replies. I'm ploughing through the various sites. In most of the places I've sailed mobile phones work very well so a dial modem would probably work well too - and so I guess (without much evidence) would GPRS. I have seen no indication of Wifi in any marina we visited this year - though I made no enquiries. I would have expected notices as mostly one has to pay to use wifi ( I think?).
If you have any more info please let us all know. Thanks again.

<hr width=100% size=1>Roger

 

[jenku]

My experience as of this summer and the Stockholm archipelago is that GPRS and 3G do not work reliably in the outer parts of the archipelago. It works great near the big islands or close to the mainland, but a few miles off there is no data coverage although GSM voice calls do still work. Could of course be depending on the operator, I use Comviq. I doubt it would be of much use farther up north or in the less populated coastal areas.

I used it to check weather forecasts via WAP, well trying to anyway.



<hr width=100% size=1>http://www.sail.to/alacrity

 

[ChrisE]

Pragmatist,
That 'rubbish' article is the best part of 4 years out of date!

Regarding 3G I've had a Vodafone card for the last 8 months and am generally happy with it. Yes, it does run at 350k bits/sec on download. The crossover between 3G and GPRS can be a bit iffy sometimes seamless other times logging you off. Mind you I use the card on the train where there are dead spots for all mobile coverage.

I used the card for summer hols in S. Brittany for weather and was generally impressed although we did NOT get 3G working in any port we called into, GPRS worked OK.

My guess is that, as Boatone says, 3G will be great in a couple of years once the 3G stations come one line to the extent that GPRS has now

Chris

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[paulskent]

I am in the unfortunate position of having to supply a service to 200 mobile users throughout the UK, mostly based on a mobile connection service from Orange. The facts are.

We implemented the GPRS service about 12 months ago. It was scratchy at first but has steadily improved over the year and we get a connection in most parts of the UK now, although there are still one or two black holes. There seems to be more contention on a Friday afternoon for some reason.

WE are trialling 3G from Orange as of now. It is much like the GPRS service was 12 months ago. We have been using the service since launch about 2 months ago and have seen a steady improvement. The main problem seems to be where the 3G service is marginal. The failover is not seemless. Although Orange assure me that there are new drivers for their cards that will improve things.

The unsurprising thing is (as with all new technology introductions) the less technophobic seem to get a better service than the others.

PK.

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