Useless marina WIFI

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Daydream believer

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Having been round UK twice & to France, Belgium Holland & Channnel Islands numerous times i can say I have visited a fair few marinas.
Most advertise WIFI. Some charge extortionate rates ,some claim to be free.
However, what they all have in common is that most would be better off supplying 2 coke tine & a piece of string to communicate
Time & time again the harbour master either claims to know nothing about WIFI or just shrugs & say " yes we know it is rubbish" Followed by some thing like " Well that is what BT put in & they say it works"

How do forumites view marina WIFI. Do they think they are OK or just a load of rubbish.

I know nothing of the theory, but wish I could just get a decent connection without paying loads of dosh to EE for an add on to my sim for each country which expires before I get to use it for the full [period

Can anyone say ( using child like language) " Buy this, get your Ipad plug it in there & turn on" but it will be no use to me telling me to buy a zillion megabit floggle toggle dongle wiring it to a flange pipe & etc etc-- get my meaning???

Any help much appreciated
Thanks in advance
 
Most marina wifi does indeed seem to be ****. I presume due to penny-pinching on the backhaul capacity.

Since 3G came along, this has mattered less to me. If a wifi network pops up when I pick up my phone, I'll give it a quick try. If it doesn't immediately give satisfaction, I'll turn it off and continue with 3G. With the European roaming deals these days, this applies equally to anywhere I might sail.

Pete
 
prv said:
Most marina wifi does indeed seem to be ****. I presume due to penny-pinching on the backhaul capacity.

Since 3G came along, this has mattered less to me. If a wifi network pops up when I pick up my phone, I'll give it a quick try. If it doesn't immediately give satisfaction, I'll turn it off and continue with 3G. With the European roaming deals these days, this applies equally to anywhere I might sail.

Pete
Click to expand...

Except with my Nokia 6832 i cannot do that. plus the deals offered by EE for Ipad sim are about £30-00 for a month in a country so if traveling that could be 3 lots of £ 30-00 in a few days & when returning more than a month later the £ 30-00 have all run out
 
Daydream believer said:
Having been round UK twice & to France, Belgium Holland & Channnel Islands numerous times i can say I have visited a fair few marinas.
Most advertise WIFI. Some charge extortionate rates ,some claim to be free.
However, what they all have in common is that most would be better off supplying 2 coke tine & a piece of string to communicate
Time & time again the harbour master either claims to know nothing about WIFI or just shrugs & say " yes we know it is rubbish" Followed by some thing like " Well that is what BT put in & they say it works"

How do forumites view marina WIFI. Do they think they are OK or just a load of rubbish.

I know nothing of the theory, but wish I could just get a decent connection without paying loads of dosh to EE for an add on to my sim for each country which expires before I get to use it for the full [period

Can anyone say ( using child like language) " Buy this, get your Ipad plug it in there & turn on" but it will be no use to me telling me to buy a zillion megabit floggle toggle dongle wiring it to a flange pipe & etc etc-- get my meaning???

Any help much appreciated
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

Was in Fox's marina Ipswich last week & barely got a signal outside the HM/Yacht Club, no chance on boat.
 
Agree with Oldvarnish.
wifispark if usually wubbish.

I get free wifi at Mayflower Marina but it's very marginal on strength and bandwidth.

Makes me wonder if you pay for it at whatever per day £5? is it any better ?
 
Have a look at the 3 phone network. You can use your UK data, phone minutes and text allowance in 16 countries for no extra cost. Current countries are Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Macau, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland and The USA, with more expected. I've used gigabytes upon gigabytes of data, hours and hours of talk time and sent hundreds of texts from several of these countries over the last year for not a penny more than my usual monthly contract cost of £23. The only thing which doesn't roam is the unlimited tethering part of my particular package.
 
Back in May we chartered a Bavaria 50 through Nautilus in Croatia. It came with its own wi-fi hotspot which seemed to work wherever we were (though of course that was never far offshore). Presumably there was some charge for this service which was absorbed into the charter fee. Impressive, though! My Hudl tablet got a system upgrade via the connection.

Mike.
 
WIFI Spark is great in Port Hamble but totally useless in Ocean village. The wifi in Cherbourg is very good if you park near an antenna, they are easy to spot. Treburdon is brilliant and free. However this year we went to the West country. It was a total disaster, on board we had 3, EE, Vodafone and O2. Is most places EE and Vodafone were useless, EE gutting voice only in many places, 3 was slightly better but best of all was O2. I have a Vodafone 3g dongle and an EE iPhone and found it just about impossible to do any work or even collect emails. My wife the owner of the 3 iPad and the O2 phone was rather more fortunate.

The telephone companies need to improve their signalling along the south coast harbours and estuaries, I find it amazing that we have had mobile hones for over 20 years now and they can't organise signals in popular destinations. Go skiing in the Alps and you will have 3G everywhere.
 
I must declare an interest as I have a share in one of the companies providing marina wifi, and give the MD frequent ear-aches over my p*ss p88r service on board.

However the real issue is that the marina operators refuse to upgrade the broadband connection, which to be fair can be very expensive to many rural marinas. The guy in charge at one of the UK's major operators told the Boss that "Our Berth Holders don't value free wifi so we won't spend any money on it".

So the message is clear - if you want better wifi as a berth holder, then start complaining to the marina management about bandwidth. The technology is there to deliver the signal (although an ipad down below surrounded by microwave absorbing wood and grp will always be hard).

The company I have an interest in are seriously thinking of exiting the market as the grief we get and the calls to the helpline are bad for our reputation and bad for business, yet there is little we can do if all there is is a 2MB connection and everyone is trying to stream the world cup.

In the meantime I have a wifi attena on the backstay so I can sniff out a residential BT home hub with BTopenzone and a 3G dongle.
 
Tempus said:
However the real issue is that the marina operators refuse to upgrade the broadband connection [...] there is little we can do if all there is is a 2MB connection and everyone is trying to stream the world cup.
Click to expand...

Hold on, so the "marina wifi" companies don't consider it part of their job to provide the backhaul? That's bloody stupid, and no wonder the service is terrible. It's your service, and the number one thing you're relying on you don't control and apparently don't even specify an SLA for? Nuts.

Pete
 
Occasionally I have found marina wifi that is very good. Very occasionally. Most is slow to useless.
And I never pay for access - if they want money, I just don't bother.
And if I don't have a decent phone signal either - well, I'll look at the emails tomorrow. Or the day after.
 
Netabord in Calais is now very good, around 5-10 mbs, Now €10 for 3 months access (max 6GB) which can be used at their other hotspots.
 
In marinas, the forrest of masts does create propagation problems, which is why it's nearly always better in the clubhouse or bar. Also, there's a bandwidth issue as almost everyone wants to use it at the same times. EG In Cherbourg, I got an excellent service at 0530 on the day we left, but at 0900 other days it was dreadful. There is an old adage "you get what you pay for" and free wifi? Well you get what you're given, no point in bitching about it.
 
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