Technology

[jake777]

Does anyone have any idea where I can find out about the feasibility of running an on line business from an ocean going yacht. Does anyone know if there have been any research projects/ feasiblity studies in this field, (including anywhere where I can get info about people running businesses online from very remote on land areas as well as at sea)?? Any ideas gratefully received...

 

[Paragon]

I work in computers and have often fantasised about this idea, several problems though! The running of computers is no problem either from generator through say a UPS to smooth it out or alternatively off the batteries via an inverter. Main problems are communication!

1) Cellular - commonly used and technology currently available to allow this no problem. Working from different countries however may have defferent levels of service / reception. Also quite an expensive call to be online to remote site / internet for any appreciable time!

2) Satelite, OK but expensive and dish needs to be pretty well statis, unless you opt for gyro stabilised platforms and the like. In any event expensive!

3) Radio Comms - unknown!

Hope this helps

John

 

[Guest]

Hello - I have been thinking about this a lot recently, as I'm planning to spend periods of time living aboard my own boat and working.

Important to stress early on that I am not intending to pour cold water on your plans (plenty of that underneath the boat) - just to discuss some thorny issues that I am coming across.

Accommodation is a really serious issue. Can you sit comfortably to work without becoming cramped/using the computer in such a way that you injure your back and joints? Have you got room for storage of records/other necessary business stuff? Are you the sort of person, like me, that needs to walk up and down to think?

Can you leave your computer/workstation set up, or must you dismantle it every time you want to have a meal or look at a chart? This could soon become a real chore, IMHO... Are you the only person on the boat, or will other people be around sharing limited space for several activities? Conversely, if you are alone, can you concentrate on work, or will your mind be constantly on the boat?

Almost anything can be done online these days but not quite everything. What happens if you need to receive supplies, or deal with money and banks in a non-electronic fashion?

Also I'm on inland waters and so can moor up by the bank when inspiration beckons or necessity calls - or the phone rings. Do you plan to sail around, or are you talking about being based out of a marina?

For all I know, you could be floating around in an 80-foot barge and have no difficulties with many of these things. My boat is very old-fashioned and 24 feet long. Carpentry will be required in order to fashion a comfortable place to sit without back strain. My fellow occupant will be The Better Half, a man who is more than 6ft tall and trying to make do with 5ft 8ins standing headroom, who is also in the same line of work, and who also needs to walk up and down when he is thinking.

As you said, all ideas gratefully considered... ;- )) I love my yacht but am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the only truly practical floating office is to be found on board a narrowboat. On the subject of which, there is a man on a narrowboat in Cambridge, UK, who has a website. I seem to remember it says that he finds internet access via a mobile very slow - generally downloading pictures is too much for his set-up.


Good luck

"Whoops... I'm falling in love with narrowboating..."
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by The_Fruitbat on Sat May 18 20:24:33 2002 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[Mr Cassandra]

I think that some of the wooden boat owners ,manage to do Ok with pigeons!
As they always say Technolegy stoped when they invented GRP.Cheers From Greece .Bob T

Bob T

 

[Guest]

Thanks Bob - I'll give pigeons a try ;- ))

"Whoops... I'm falling in love with narrowboating..."

 

[poter]

Re: Technology- frustration

Apologies for jumping on your post
But I have just read this thread and many others similar to your enquiry over the past few months, and find it all very frustrating.
Like you I would be happy to get some definitive info on comms at sea.
Is it still beyond today’s technology to get fast, reliable, sensibly priced access to the Internet from a portable location?
I have an excellent setup with laptops and mains PC but to get online on the move is totally crap. It’s slow and ridiculously expensive.
Even my super duper modern mobile takes ages to connect to my isp and then its slow and often just dissconects.

Is there an answer out there????? I honestly don’t think so with the present state of mobile comms.
If any one can prove me wrong please, please, let us know.


poter.

 

[Guest]

Fiddling around in the guts of the boat

>Is there an answer out there????? I honestly don’t think so with the present state of mobile comms. If any one can prove me wrong please, please, let us know.

Seconded - I need this info too, thanks for a useful contribution.

I have also decided to boost my power supply by adding an extra battery on the domestic side of things, and I've got to get involved with inverters, so any offerings on these matters welcome. An urgent project is to install a cigarette lighter-type socket for mobile charging, then it's off to find a laptop which isn't too power hungry and which is compatible with my own aged computer equipment at home. Ho hum...

 

[JeremyF]

It depends on where you intend to be. If you are in UK coastal waters, then O2 and Vodafone have GPRS networks, which is a packet data overlay on the existing GSM network. So, where you have GSM you'll get GPRS. There are 3 benefits of GPRS
1. Speed. You should get the equivalent of at least a 56k modem, maybe more. Data over GSM is only 9.6k
2. Always on. No dial-up waits
3. Pay for the data you send/receive, rather than minutes on-line. Should save a fortune.

So, if you are in UK (or western european) coastal waters, you can a mobile data service thats not much slower than an ISDN line for home workers

Jeremy Flynn

 

[Buck]

mobile coms

As a coms engineer I will be researching this topic over the next few weeks as I too intend to take to the water full time.

Buck

The thing about men and fish is one is always trying to eat the other.

 

[poter]

Re: mobile coms

Go for it Buck look forward to any conclusions.
I am aware that there will be a 3rd generation coming on line soon which will be faster than the WAP phones...... but at what cost, equipment and charges?

let us know


poter.

 

[Chris_Stannard]

You could try the Inmarsat route. This would almost certainly need a high speed modem which they ought to have available, so you can send or receive messages without spending a great deal of time on line. I am not sure how you would integrate into the Internet since Inmarsat would be too expensive to stay on line but there mught well be commercila services that gave you that kind of access.

PROBLEMS would of course include space for the terminal although they do make quite small ones, power consumption and expense.

Chris Stannard

 

[trev]

Re: Technology- frustration

Have you tried 'tracvision'. We've had very good commercial shipping use out of the system.(400kbps) - I believe they produce a lightweight dome suitable for small craft.
try www.khv.com

Trev

 

[MikeKopman]

When cruising I used a portable device known as Pocketmail which is basically a PDA with basic email, address, memo and calendar software combined with an old fashioned style modem (the type that you align with the actual telephone handset). You type your mail offline, go to a public phone, dial up a certain number and hold the pocketmail next to the handset. It uploads your outgoing mail and downloads any messages waiting for you. Typically takes a minute or two to handle 4-5 messages. It has it's limitations (slow, no text only, limited message size) but is incredibly cheap.... the unit costs less than 100 quid. You cannot surf the web with it but I found it a brilliant mobile email solution. You never need to look for internet cafes or lines to connect your laptop to, or set up local mobile accounts. I used it all over the world without hassle. Obviously it doesn't have the versatility of a laptop (altough you can interface it with one) but at the price and for the convenience it offers it is well worth a look. If you were adamant about not leaving your boat the newer models can actually be used with mobiles. I believe in most cases one would not really be running a business while far affshore, during crossings etc. When we had to we made use of inmarsat mini m. Yes it's expensive but apart from Iridium there's not much else.

 

[Guest]

Some food for thought, but I cannnot advertise the company that is assisting us in this matter. I run a worldwide operation from the Channel Islands, part of which is a UN participating institution on global environmental matters. We operate 24/24, 7/7 on ADSL and once you have used ADSL you become spoilt and frustrated when you have to use another method for internet connection etc.

Being an ocean sailor I looked at this some time ago, so that when I was absent, I could keep my ear to the ground to respond to professional questions usually from some distant country in the developing world. There is no difference at being at sea and in remote areas on land where email and internet facilities are non-existant. Imarsat was the obvious choice, but space for the dome was prohibitive. Imarsat B is a good solution for connecting to the internet by satelite with connection speeds in excess to ISDN.

Alternatively use Iridium with GPRS and AT&T for sending your communication, with your usual ISP downloading your POP3 email data and surfing your selected websites. Costs about £15/20 per month with charges being made for the downloading only, not for surfing.

It is possible, in todays age, to run a business from anywhere and collect the revenue at a distance. No one would even know that you were sailing around offshore or from your local boating lake!

 

[stefan_r]

Laptop 12v supply

You can get a 12v ciggy adapter for many laptops so you don't need to go the inverter route for PC's on board....

Dunno if that addresses the theme of your post.

Can suggest you also take a look at:
http://www.power-store.com
they know their boat stuff and the owner is regular contributor to PBO

mailto: stefan@athito.com

 

[sailbadthesinner]

Re: mobile coms

I would caution against using the words 'coming soon' in relation to 3G

The UK is somewhat ahead of the game having had its 3G Auction. However only Orange and Hutch 3g Plans to launch a 3G network at this time and it could be a while before it is Europe wide in the same way we expect our mobiles to work.

Hutch hold the new 5th operating licence have concrete plans to launch in the near future ( 02 and Tmobile are delaying for a while. partly i think to see how the ohters get on and partly to await a 'relaible ' handset.)

The technology is as yet not totally proven. The main issue will be cost. The operators will have to recoup the high amounts paid to governments for licences. DIt will be a great test of ecommerce. How much do i really need mobile internet access. I need my phone to make calls but i have one already. With the advent of blue tooth it may not be needed to get 3g just to pick up emails.

I would sooner package files up and connect to a land line and pay the fees. than wait for 3g to deliver and delay my move to sea.

If it Cooks Flys or Floats, Rent it.

 

[Buck]

Re: mobile coms

Either way it only provides a near land solution.

Buck

The thing about men and fish is one is always trying to eat the other.

 

[HaraldS]

Re: mobile coms

Quite interested what you find out. Have been looking at this in intervals and put it off for another while. Certainly spoiled with ADSL at home and fibre optic connections to most of our offices, I found that once on the boat I'm not missing all that stuff so badly.

Todays style of always on and huge bandwidth when you feel like, I think will not be possible out on the ocean for some more years, at least not affordable.
The only thing that comes close to these requirements and works globally seems to be Inmarsat F77 Mobile Packet Data Service. Which gives ISDN speed combined with always on. The antenna weights 50kg and is about one meter diameter! Charge is on data like with GPRS but I haven't seen the pricing yet, it is said to be noticaebly more expensive than the same 64kbits of Imarsat-B at an airtime rate of $7.50 a minute. The ship terminals costs from $20,000 up.

For now I have settled for just email and I'm using the relatively cheap Iridium as well as shortwave for that. I plan to revisit the topic a few years from now.

With respect to the cellular carriers I'm also sceptical regarding the rate of progress. My company supplies software for these guys, particularly for the data gateways, and unfortunate for us, the willingness to invest much on that front is currently not high. If you add lead times to this and the fact that they would want to sell value added services based on the new technology first, rather than raw data switching bandwidth, then my prognosis would also be for about 3 to 5 years before we have decent packet priced and always on data services, with speeds above 100kbit truely awailable hopefully with roaming agreements.

 

[andy_wilson]

GPRS

1. Speed. The networks you mention restrict the max no. of time slots devoted to your connection. Other subscribers (congestion) often restrict ALL timeslots available for your congestion. 1 timeslot = 9.6K and you will be lucky to achieve this.

2. Always on so the above may not matter much for e-mail but just try web browsing. Click and brew-up!

3. Set your e-mail client to poll for e-mails regularly and you will pay for every handshake everytime, even if there are no e-mails to download.

You could also consider Orange High Speed Circuit Switched Data, guaranteed 28.8k connection speed so surfing isn't too painfull. ISDN connection available, means that handshake can be quicker. Log on and pay by the second while connected.

Andy Wilson

 

[Guest]

As far as technology goes, if you are serious about maintaining a business presence, and availability forget about mobile phone solutions as they are currently too slow, and can be unreliable. The ideal solution would be satelite transmission, such as Inmarsat, but that can be quite expensive so then you will need to look at the ROI and whether your business can support it.

Any online business needs to be able to respond to its customer needs. If the service you provide is too slow, unreliable or the information out of date your online business will die very quickly. In this global age finding a supplier that offers better service, and up to date information is easy. Consequently, maintaining a dynamic site that attracts potential customers, and keeps them informed, is essential for e-commerce success.

Land based technology is relatively cheap, and there are plenty of ISPs (worldwide) that can provide more than adequate business solutions. Your missing link is being able to access the land based networks from mid-ocean. Once you have that you are on equal terms, as far as technology goes, with any other Internet business. Why do you think all those luxury yachts in the Med, and any other world marine playground, have communication domes? Similar technologies are used by the round the world racers, and you may want to check out the Volvo site and see the technolgy being used for real.

I have an interest in web development for business (non commercial) and I would be interested to know how you get on. Good Luck.