Alan Spicer Marine Telecom in both January and February Triton

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom got mentioned in both January and February “The Triton - Nautical News for Captains and Crews” an industry magazine that Alan Spicer loves, and Captains and Crews love as well.

The first time was in section C page 14 (C-14) of January 2009. It starts on C-1 as…

TRITON SURVEY: INTERNET USE
Yachts rely on Web dockside and at sea By Lucy Chabot Reed

* One of the captains surveyed mentioned their Ericsson W25 Cellular Voice and Internet System from Alan Spicer (www.marinetelecom.net.) Whoever that was - Thanks for the mention!!!!

The second time was in section A page 26 (A-26) February 2009. I had written a letter and spoke on the phone with Lucy of the Triton - she wanted to publish my letter in the Letters section in a follow up to the original SURVEY article. I pointed out some discrepancies I had noticed in nomenclature or terminology in descriptions of different types of Cellular and Satellite Internet Communications systems and made other comments. Thanks for posting my letter!!!! (Clarifying Internet Terms.)

Here it is:
 
Clarifying internet terms
I enjoyed your e-survey [”Yachts rely
on Web dockside and at sea,” January
2009, page C1]
There were some technical things
that might have been wrong. For
example, Ericsson W25 is a cellular 3G.
Many boats may still be running laptop
card cellular routers using Verizon,
Sprint or AT&T cards. Some might
even be sharing the connection off a
laptop or a desktop PC with a card in it.

I’m not sure what a “marina wi-fi”
is. If you mean a wi-fi sharing system
(a wi-fi bridge or router), that connects
to a marina (or any wi-fi hotspot) and
shares on the boat. Syrens is also one of
those. By the way, Syrens is no longer
what you think it is. I think I blogged
about it when I learned of it.

There is actually no marine BGAN,
or at least it’s not called that. It’s
called Fleet broadband, and it’s from
Inmarsat, despite who claims to be the
best seller of it. Those other companies
actually only make the antennas and
Thrane-and-Thrane makes the actual
transceiver/router unit.
So it’s confusing when you say
Inmarsat when Mini-M, Fleet 33, Fleet
55, Fleet 77, and Fleet Broadband are
all Inmarsat.

Wimax I don’t think is really out of
the gate yet. I don’t know why captains
would be saying that they want that
when it won’t be available anywhere
that they go, unlike wi-fi and cellular
(and satellite) that are. And Wimax will
probably cost money, as expensive as
cellular 3G, if not more expensive on
the monthly rate. I haven’t seen any
marine Wimax equipment. I wonder if
there are any marinas offering Wimax. I
would think not, too expensive.

I did work on a yacht, Hayfu II, with
a Fleet Broadband. I was able to add it
into an onboard network arrangement
and switch it in. It connects quite
handily and was reasonably fast. I think
we measured 300kb/s on a speed test
before shutting it off to avoid costs.

I did have one boat, a couple years
back, 110-foot Broward or something,
that wanted to take me on a trip up
north with them because they liked the
idea of having a marine Internet guy
onboard. Most of my customers feel
that way.
Alan Spicer
Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

—
Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net
http://www.alanspicermarinetelecom.com
communications (at) marinetelecom.net
communications (at) alanspicermarinetelecom.com
a_spicer (at) bellsouth.net
+1 954-683-3426 +1 954-977-5245