General Question on Networks?

[Sam Ceccola]

My wife and I travel periodically and enjoy going on cruise ships. Most of the major cruise lines have Internet connections that the passengers can use but they are fairly expensive. From my experience, they average about $1.00 a minute.

Once in a while I will see someone sitting using their own laptop to look at and send their email. I wonder how the connection is done?

Does anyone know? Is their special equipment and / or software that will allow connection no-matter where you are? My feeling is they belong to some satellite service that allows this feature.

I use Comcast. I wonder if I should call them on this? If you have any idea, let me know.

Thanks,
Sam

[Dan18960]

Comcast can NOT offer that service - but I believe Sprint has an option that is available.

It is a PCMCIA interface that is similar to their cellular connection but does use a satellite connection. I think you will find the costs of the hardware and service to be more in the "businessman" class rather than just the "casual" users funds.

I have several clients that use this but their employer "shares" it among their traveling sales / tech staff. I don't know the billing but have been told that it is rather expensive.

[Sam Ceccola]

Dan:

Thanks for confirming my suspicion. For the few times we travel, no matter how much extra it cost, it wouldn't be worth my while.

By the way, you remember the Scanner I had to send back to NewEgg with the RMA. I got a new one from them and installed it on the New PC this morning. It's working great.

Still don't have the "Shared Printing" working. Hopefully, today's project.

Thanks Again,
Sam

[mylanta]

Dan:

Thanks for confirming my suspicion. For the few times we travel, no matter how much extra it cost, it wouldn't be worth my while.

By the way, you remember the Scanner I had to send back to NewEgg with the RMA. I got a new one from them and installed it on the New PC this morning. It's working great.

Still don't have the "Shared Printing" working. Hopefully, today's project.

Thanks Again,
Sam

Glad to hear that Sam....

[dbarrow]

With the number of "open" hot spots that abound everywhere, I know a few people who travel who say they have no trouble finding free access for their laptops no matter where they go.

I recently loaned the cantenna to a co-worker who was camping in Maine. The camp grounds had a hot spot but you had to get close to use it. He had no problems from considerable distance with the cantenna.

[Smokey]

Most cellular service companies have data plans for notebooks. I have a Sprint card I use, which is about $50 a month and works great. As long as I have Sprint coverage I have full service for the card. Its worth every penny when I get a page that there is a problem and I am no where near a computer or I'm on the side of the highway. When traveling back and forth from Philly to Rochester, NY there were only a handfull of easily accessible free hotspots, so the card more than paid for itself at this point.