square mile in the Dragon's Den!

Re: Smugness Police

Yeah fair play, but you can see why it surprised me. Would you send a press release to someone who works on a UK sailing portal telling them you are starting the first UK sailing portal? /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif
 
Re: Smugness Police

Course i would - our mailing lists are useless!

Worse than that, we had of a mailing list on computer where someone here wrote a flippin note about a potential customer...on the address field! As a result , they got a letter which read the equivalent of "IPC, King's Reach Tower, SE1 <<too poor" . Needless to say they went a bit bonkers...
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

There may well be.

I'll keep you posted.

btw - if anyone else is contemplating it - there is a bit of a legal dilemma. We decided to use a nat router, firewalled the private network from that, access point connects to router. Users are told that they are connecting to a totally insecure network - no wep, nothing.

Why? Because if we provided that, and illegal stuff took place through our connection, we could be liable. Doing it my way means that we do at least have the defence that the connection can be used in the road outside, and we cannot identify who the errant user was.
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

[ QUOTE ]
So if I was running a chandlery/brokerage in a marina I would have put one in by now, and be laughing at Square Mile or anyone else trying to charge.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is a point I made in The Lounge, where a similar discussion is taking place. During his pitch he said that he had exclusive access to boaters in marinas. Well, not in mine as I can get a WiFi signal from one of my properties.

I am not sure he can claim that unless he illegally blocks other signals.
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

Saw the program last night. Wondered at the time whether the Dragons are really that smart.

WiFi in a Marina is an excellent idea. Paying £120 per year for one location is less so unless maybe a liveaboard mostly on the berth. Their idea of delevoping a sailing portal with advertising seems very late out of the blocks. Perhaps if they offered reliable nationwide marina wi-fi coverage and third party hotpoints as well it might worth a subscription. A reasonably priced European roaming option might also be an attraction.

I use a Macintosh I-Book with Wi-fi and travel quite a bit with it. Sometime I get free connection, otherwise I use pay as you go. (T-Mobile WiFi £13.00 for 24 hours online at around 2000 UK sites).

Best Marina implementation I have seen is at Victoria Marina in St Peterport. They give you a password when you clear in. No current charges and I just sat on board, started up the computer logged on and gained high speed access to everything I needed. Featured on their web site and seems to be being offered as a customer perk.

Contrast the initial installation at Dartmouth (Darthaven) where unless you sat within 20 ft of the aerial connection was very dodgy.

I've also picked up Wi-Fi signals on the buoys in Salcombe and Fowey but it was unclear who controlled password access.

I reckon the scenario described by BOGUING will become widespread as businesses and clubs install the relatively cheap kit as a loss leader/token charge service for customers/members.

My reply would be, nice presentation but this investment is not for me.
 
Re: Smugness Police

Keith, you didn't see the show, but he admitted that he knew little about boating.

So that makes two now! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

Agree that the StPP implementation is very good.

At Northney we have iZone providing good coverage from an adjacent building outside MDL control. I subscribed at £150 pa as it's useful in my home port and I can pretend to be in the office. I've had some correspondence with Dominic Killinger (the guy who did the pich last night) but can't see how they will make a business out of this. MDL won't allow them in, presumably because they cannot see any added value to themselves. Or maybe they have plans of their own?

What I'd really like to see is a single provider both sides of the channel with reliable coverage. Cherbourg has no access, for example.
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

The knicker lady has a 20` container (£18,000) on its way and she`s potless & on income support for chrissake !
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

Also it sounded as if she had bought the container full of knickers manufactured in India without any independant quality control.

Sounds like the theme of a Christmas fools and horses episode to me. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
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