Square Mile WiFi hotspot

[isandell]

Is anyone using Square Mile? I have had very mixed results and not sure whether it's my rig or what.

At the mo I am using the one at Royal Clarence Yard in Gosport but it's quite flakey.

Thanks

Ian

 

[FWB]

You may need a booster antenna. Square mile will sell you a Smartbridges antenna for about £150. This connex via ethernet port and can be 12v powered--beware, like women it's +ve earth. Has made big difference to my setup.

 

[Viscount]

I'm using it in Troon with no problems. Sony Vaio Z1-XSP with built-in WiFi.

 

[tome]

Currently in Shappards Wharf Cowes using square mile no probs.

 

[Anonymous]

Ian, I was using Square Mile all last year, living aboard, and quite honestly their service is flakey in places. I use an airbridge supplied by Square Mile and a very powerful yagi antenna to pick up signals up to a mile away. Makes you less dependant on any particular service provider or local antenna. You'd need to google for a supplier as I don't have the details to hand, though I paid £150 for my antenna but worth every penny.

 

[Anwen]

My boat is in Plymouth Yacht Haven, and frankly the Square Mile service is unusable with a standard Centrino laptop. The signal strength is almost always poor, which makes the connection speed too slow to be viable.

However, this week, we were in Falmouth at the Falmouth Marina (up the river past the Greenbanks Hotel), and the Square Mile service there was fantastic. Always connected with good to excellent signal strength, and fast, reliable connection as a result. It has made me wonder what Falmouth are doing right and Plymouth doing wrong.

 

[isandell]

Thanks all.

I am not in league of paying £150 for specialized equipment and I would have thought that if Square Mile is to become a paying concern, they need to install equipment to allow connexion with standard wifi enabled machines.

Others' experiences seem to bear out my own. In some places it works (I found eastbourne excellent) and in others it's bad (Brighton was rubbish).

I dont think it's just a matter of signal strength either. Today I was getting near 100% reported strength and quality and the connexion was generally good, but when I tried to download anything of any size (maybe over 500kB), the transfer would pause after about 5 minutes, then resume, then pause etc. Looked like it was being deliberately throttled.

I cant see most punters being happy at having to buy expensive additional equipment or being throttled on downloads on nominally 512 or higher line.

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Square Mile WiFi hot spot

The viability of Square Mile and how they should or could run their business is one thing, and the facts of the present status is another, quite different, thing.

To make WiFi work over the distances involved in a marina several aerials are needed and my experience of SM from June 2004 to July 2005 along the south coast from Falmouth to the Hamble (at least 5 marinas with SM visited) suggests that not all the aerials work all of the time. This leads to dead spots in the marina. Another common problem is lack of an internet connection per se - the laptop says that there is a good signal but it cannot get an IP address as it is not connected to a DSL point. Further, SM offer a range of services at different notional speeds - these are quoted speeds rather than quoted contentions. This could be causing the 'throttling' problem you describe, but it is also possible that your system is trying to lock onto a dysfunctional local aerial or the signal is jumping about all over the place. WiFi works at around 2GHz which is essentially line of sight and can be blocked by masts or other conducting or lossy objects so fluctuations in a marina should be expected.

I sympathise with your reluctance to shell out £150 or more, which is a huge sum for a leisure sailor in season but it is not so unreasonable for someone using their boat throughout the year or for those who use their internet for business.

For the time being, the best you can do is to try to get berthed as close as possible to the main antenna otherwise your unassisted laptop will struggle. In due course a new standard, WiMax, will replace WiFi for marina applications. Maybe one to three years, I guess.

With my system (£300 worth of airbridge and yagi) I have been able to connect to the internet at broadband speeds from the Hamble to SW Spain, often at anchor. It is a very attractive proposition for heavy internet users.

 

[isandell]

Re: Square Mile WiFi hot spot

I was using Square Mile at Gosport at Sat and there wasn't an IP problem. The lease seems only to last for about 6 minutes but renews without problem, atl east while there is activity. Also I dont think the slow downloads are a result of contention, unless there are a lot of insomoniacs in Gospost, as the the downloads were just as slow at 0300 or 0500.

Ian

 

[jeremyshaw]

I don't claim great expertise in this subject but in the Caribbean when I was having trouble getting a wireless signal on a laptop with built-in wireless I bought, on the advice of a friend, a USB wireless receiver (Linksys) for about $40. This has the advantage of being on about 2m of cable so you can move it about, and made all the difference for a reasonable cost.

 

[isandell]

Thanks, that's useful. USB wifi dongles are now available in UK from 10UKP and I have been considering one. The ability to string up the rigging to get better signal is attractive.

Ian

 

[MedMan]

Have a look at the SMC High Power WiFi PC Card here. It can be used with an external aerial.

 

[isandell]

Thanks. Quite expensive for .11b card but maybe worth it if it gives good connexion with external aerial. I wonder how much extra powere this card has over a "normal" card?

Ian

 

[BlueChip]

I have been using SQM in Haslar for over two years since it was first available. I have a wireless PDA and also a Centrino with an ethernet Smartbridges airbridge which I bought direct from the manufacturer after I had initial connectivity problems.

The connection quality at Haslar is variable, some times I can connect easily using my PDA or Centrino, on other occassions I have big problems in getting any connection even using the Centrino and airbridge.

IMHO it may be that naval transmissions in Portsmouth Harbour cause interference in this area

At other SQM locations, Weymouth for instance I often have had top quality connections without problems but in these and other locations such as hotels the airbridge does give superb performance benefits.

I often visit Hartelpool on business and stay at a hotel about 3/4 mile from the marina which has SQM, with the airbridge I get a perfect connection

I travel a lot and need connectivity when I am on the road, for what its worth I find that that just about every McDonalds has a BT Openzone connection (and their coffee is pretty good now as well) - doesn't help you in Royal Clarence though.