What is it with Marinas and their inability to provide decent Wifi

superheat6k

superheat6k

Well-Known Member
Joined
10 Jan 2012
Messages
6,798
Location
South Coast
Visit site
Riverside Boatyard (Foulkes) Hamble strictly excepted - excellent signal latches on straight away.

Recent pi55 poor examples: -

Cowes Yacht Haven fee ~ £35 for 36' - Good Wifi signal - does not work

Yarmouth Harbour fee ~ £40 - WIFI extra

Poole Harbour Yacht Haven fee ~ £45 - Good Wifi signal - but again it does not work

What also is it that the standard answer from the Marina staff is along the lines of "well we have wifi, but doesn't really work".

So if we are berthing, paying the extortionate fee and being provided the service inclusive have we a right to receive benefit of this service, and if the service paid for is not provided what is our right to complain and demand a (partial) refund ?

I appreciate the robbers at Yarmouth add this as an extra (along with the showers), but when are the marinas going to get their act together. Have they ever sailed with kids expecting to be on line every living moment !!!

I know the argument is masts and obstructions - as I sit here in Poole Yacht Haven i am about 20' from the wifi base station, and have a full strength signal. Something at the end they are meant to connect to their service provider simply missing.

Thank goodness for tethering via my iPhone, but this is killing my data plan.
 
Hello,
Totally agree, With the newly fitted Alfa R36 I get better signal strength but still rubbish speed. Now it is all double Dutch to me but in my marina at Ipswich Haven i get a readout of 54mb/sec. We got up to the Tide Mill over Easter and found no signal at all so went cellular (at a cost) Great place mind.
Is there an answer?
 
My understanding is that it's generally down to cheapskatery on the backhaul (that is, the connection from the wifi system up to the Internet as a whole). So it's nothing to do with masts and obstructions, and you can have an excellent connection to the wireless access point, but if they're trying to squeeze four dozen boats' iPlayer traffic through a domestic ADSL connection then it ain't gonna work.

Bizarrely, I heard from someone in the business that it's common for the wifi providers to only do the wireless bit and then expect the marina to provide the backhaul - and they might well just plug it into their existing office network and then blame the wifi company when it doesn't work. That's like having an electrical contractor wire the pontoons for shore power and then taking it all to a 13-amp plug behind the office filing cabinet.

Pete
 
Of course, the whole issue is becoming irrelevant as 3G and 4G take over. Went sailing with the parents this long weekend, they kept trying to give me the wifi codes for wherever we were berthed. Of absolutely no interest to me as I was already just using my phone.

3bae3f005e8d01316710001dd8b71c47


:)

Pete
 
Burnham Marina in deepest darkest Essex..(ie.somewhere NOT not in the Solent.
Free to all .No silly passwords or convoluted connection.
Just find-n-connect.
Dead easy..even for a dedicated techo-saur like me. :)
 
MDL Torquay apparently has very good wifi across the marina.........I wouldn't know though, I go to the boat to get away from it all.
 
When you have a marina full of people wanting to watch live tv through the marina wifi its a no go, I wouldn't expect it to. Have always used 3G for email etc and never had a problem. From three mobile its quite reasonably priced.
 
prv said:
My understanding is that it's generally down to cheapskatery on the backhaul (that is, the connection from the wifi system up to the Internet as a whole). So it's nothing to do with masts and obstructions, and you can have an excellent connection to the wireless access point, but if they're trying to squeeze four dozen boats' iPlayer traffic through a domestic ADSL connection then it ain't gonna work.

Bizarrely, I heard from someone in the business that it's common for the wifi providers to only do the wireless bit and then expect the marina to provide the backhaul - and they might well just plug it into their existing office network and then blame the wifi company when it doesn't work. That's like having an electrical contractor wire the pontoons for shore power and then taking it all to a 13-amp plug behind the office filing cabinet.

Pete
Click to expand...

+1
Expecting everyone connected to the wifi in a marina to hang off a standard ADSL connection just ain't going to work. The odd email maybe, but streaming TV forget it.
 
Swanwick have good wi-fi, at least where we are - very strong signal, Skygo works perfectly. I do believe it's not the same across the whole marina though. Free for the first 4 hours, unlimited 24/7 wi-fi for up to three units, £95 for the year.
 
We keep our boat in the Med and cruise between France, Spain and Italy - you can imagine the variety of WiFi services we've experienced in all the various marinas visited! prv has the right answer, IMHO, 3G / 4G . We have a French Orange provided Domino 4g+ Mobile WiFi unit (€69,99 cost) and a Sim card which costs us €9,99 pm with NO contract - you just stop and start as you need the service. It operates throughout Europe with 2 Gb pm (8 Gb pm is available at €24,99 pm).
Doesn't answer the question as to what are you paying for in your mooring fees where the WiFi is included and doesn't work but at least you can watch the football!
 
As well as the backhaul internet speed being an issue, there is a lack of investment in the wifi side of the connection. At its most basic (and I know there is a lot more to it than this simplistic statement) it is half duplex radio operation. Therefore a 54Mbs connection is actually 27Mbs before you start. Share this between two people and it becomes 13Mbs etc. etc. so the speed drops rapidly. Add in some noise so retransmissions are going on and it quickly becomes snails pace. They need to invest in multifrequency, multi aerial systems laid out on a cell basis to give proper and consistent coverage and even limit the number of users per access point if necessary. A single access point with an aerial up a pole is NOT a wifi installation :)

Sitting here (at work) in a properly configured wireless mesh I can currently "see" 6 access points on 2.4Ghz and 8 access points on 5Ghz. Also proper hand over between access points means that devices can wander between access points without dropping connections.

There must be a market for small access point aerials built into the pontoon shorepower posts, this would distribute wireless across the marina. (or even "leaky feeders" run around the pontoon power runs)
 
Internet use needs to be broken down into the following categories,

1, Email. No real high speed connection needed, in fact most of us receive emails to our mobile phones so no biggey.
2, Web browsing. We don't need massive data speeds to find the closest curry house or chandlery so again no biggey
3, Online shopping. see point 2
4, Watching Adult Content Material. Stop doing it you mucky buggers
5, Watching TV. Buy a TV and a Omni Directional Aerial. Free View is pretty good
 
Lots of answers with the various issues, but why are they not fixed because in the main they also offer a 'premium' service for which you pay £££. So they can advertise free WiFi yet still make some money.
A lot to be said for a big aerial so you can choose a better connection if your marina is in a built up area.
 
Jurgen said:
Internet use needs to be broken down into the following categories,

1, Email. No real high speed connection needed, in fact most of us receive emails to our mobile phones so no biggey.
2, Web browsing. We don't need massive data speeds to find the closest curry house or chandlery so again no biggey
3, Online shopping. see point 2
4, Watching Adult Content Material. Stop doing it you mucky buggers
5, Watching TV. Buy a TV and a Omni Directional Aerial. Free View is pretty good
Click to expand...

I find that my £15 a month plan from Three allows me to do all of the above with no problems.

Tethering allows me to do all the browsing, shopping and email I need. It's supposedly capped at 4gb now, but in practice seems to still be unlimited, as my unused allowance is allows 4gb, whenever I check.

The unlimited data means I can connect my phone to my tv with a hdmi cable and watch all the tv and films I like via iplayer, youtuibe, 4OD, Netflix etc.

Speed on the Three network is far better than I experienced with the marina wifi.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top