Our new 12 dbi external antenna has now arrived and it sure has been worth the wait. This antenna is a similar design to the Digital Antenna but has 2 more dbi or almost 75% more power. It is also clean and works wonderfully with all our gear. We are delighted with the testing and encourage everyone to purchase it. If you have our really old 6 dbi antenna- about 12 inches- it is time to upgrade- this is about 4 years old and the new antenna will provide many multiples of the range.

Unlike some of the cheap products on the market, this is marine grade and the coating will not peel off or turn yellow.

I know it is kinda expensive, but it comes with our solid core copper cable. The solid core is a key to performance. Braided cabeling is much cheaper but does not perform nearly as well in our real world tests. For you skeptics- excuse the geography lessons for non boaters- here is a photo of Greg White- our network guru testing our new antenna in the bbx boat 2 miles out from Friday Harbour getting full bandwidth. I even took a photo of my Garmin chart to prove it!

 

I just read some of the comments to the blog and want to thank you for some kind comments.  I am not a techy type person but an average user who struggles with technology. My sons are 17 and 18 are are much more comfortable and our network manager Greg is an old hand at this. Just so you all know, this blog does not accept any monetary compensation and it just a way for me to share some of the challenges of the WiFi world, get some advice out there and share some hints along the way. Some of the content may be simplistic for the integrators but it is just my way to reach out and share some lessons along the way. Anyway, thanks for the support- like Julie(Julie & Julia)- I did not know anyone was reading :)

It is now the one year anniversary of my AT&T plan on my iphone and I am thinking about the things that make my life easier. I thought I would share some things that friends have taught me and some discoveries of my own in migrating to the iphone and some applications that I used to move to the device:

1: G-Mail: I migrated my business e-mail to google. You can move your company domain to google and then use their g-mail to host your domain. It really works great. Our old e-mail server used microsoft exchange. I get a lot of attachments with huge files. I have had no major outage and it holds 10 gigs in my account. I would recommend it without hesitation. I also use imap so that my e-mail is synched on my iphone account. it is so easy to use- it has saved my hours compared to outlook constantly crashing under the weight of 3 gigs of messages- sorry microsoft- I love you living in Seattle but I got tired of rebooting my computer.

2: Webmail: I never thought I would say it- I now use webmail exclusively. The g-mail caches all the e-mail addresses of people not matter where you are. A few other great features: labels, calendar, calendar invites, color categories.

 

3: igoogle: If you have not tried it - check it out- you can customize your own google page with your own heading, your favorites and a bunch of other cools tools.

4: Go to meeting: If you have not checked it out- go to meeting offers you the ability to host a meeting and let people log onto your computer. It also includes unlimited conference calls all for around $600 per year. I had one conference call that cost me $80.00 for one hour. Now I get unlimited for the whole year. It is an incredible deal.

5: Constant Contact: Most of my BroadbandXpress customers are great and I do not keep in touch enough. For those of you that have a steady customer base- for $75.00 a month you can send them customized newsletters. If they do not want to be on the list- they opt out and constant contact removed them from your list.

6: Speedtest.net: Started by the founder of speakeasy- this application provides the up and down speed of your network connection plus the ping. You can see how your network compares to the fastest. It is sometimes a shock when I test my network and the speed sucks.  I am on my comcast connection today and it really sucks at 5 megs down and 3 megs up- normally it is 25 megs down so I can be a little patient. The AT&T speed is typically 1000 kbps down/250 kbps up and a very bad 400 ms on the ping. 

7: itunes podcasts: If you have an itune- it really sucks you in to subscribe to the podcasts- my favorites are this week in technology(twit), cranky Geaks and the bbc news. Podcast setting are a little bit tricky at first but I tunes makes it pretty easy.

 

Hope some of this is useful!

 

You can usually get a pcmcia slot on your computer if you order it in advance. Many new computers are not coming with pcmcia slots- the new version of the slot is an Express slot- it is about 1/2 the length of the pcmcia slot. If you have one of our high power cards- 375 mw then we have a solution for you but you need to shop carefully because the solution is not the same. Here are the solutions.

 

1: USB device($89.99): The power of this device is 100 mw- so will not have the same range. However, it does pretty well. If you were using our laptop package- you will find this solution somewhat comparable. I do not recommend it as a replacement if you had a long range Laptop Package. The power of the usb is a little weak to power the cable and antenna.

 

2: EZ connect Modem($259.99): The power of the device is 100 mw- very similar range. This unit is most comparable and has the same connector for your cable. This will need an ac source of power but it is plug and play.

 

3: Networked Boat($450.00): The power of the device is 500 mw- about a 33% incease in power and better range. If you want to make your boat wireless then simply plug this unit in and get a wifi router and you have a network like your home. This will needac source of power.

I have updated the speed test a little bit. We have had some latency issues in the San Juans and we are working with our carrier to solve them. I thought I would provide a quick update on the speed test tool that is on the left hand side of the webpage. Please click on it and save the results- if you are having speed issues in our network then this gives us a great tool- Greg White(BBX Network Manager) just spent 3 days in Friday Harbor trying to get to the bottom of some qos issues with latency and streaming.

 

SPEED TESTS:

Send us an any results at info@bbxpress.net.

Here is the link to Speedtest.net. It is a great tool to use on any network. You can use it on your mobile broadband card. There is also a mobile app for the iphone. You will be shocked at the latency of the networks. Anyway here is the link:

speedtest.net

Here is what you should see from BroadbandXpress.

Typical Download: 2-4 megs(2,000-4000 kbps- dialup is 56 kbps). Up to 10 mbps in certain locations

Typical Upload: .2-2 megs(200-2000 kbps- dialup is 56 kbps). Up to 6 mbps in certain locations

Typical Ping: 40-70 milloseconds(passable for gaming or voip). This measures the time to send packets of information to the server. The longer the time- the worse packet sensitive appications will be such as voice over internet or gaming. This will not effect your regular downloading much.  Pings in the 30-50 range are typical for comcast business which is generally the fastest generally available service in Washington. Shaw Cable is generally the fastest in BC.

The bbx higher power solutions like the long range EZ connect modem or the networked boat will greatly improve the performance of these packet sensitive applications.

Latency in a packet-switched network is measured either one-way (the time from the source sending a packet to the destination receiving it),or round-trip (the one-way latency from source to destination plus the one-way latency from the destination back to the source). Round-trip latency is more often quoted,because it can be measured from a single point. Note that round trip latency excludes the amount of time that a destination system spends processing the packet. Many software platforms provide a service called ping that can be used to measure round-trip latency. Ping performs no packet processing; it merely sends a response back when it receives a packet (i.e. performs a no-op), thus it is a relatively accurate way of measuring latency.

Ping on Speedtest.net is a bit different than a traditional command-line ping which uses ICMP. We are measuring the time it takes to get a response for an HTTP
request sent to the server. The number will be higher than an ICMP ping,but the relative value to other tests is still very useful. The server you ping
the lowest to will usually be the server that provides the most accurate bandwidthmeasurement.

 

We have increased the speed of several key locations on Vancouver Island and the Gulfs during the week of May 17, 2009:

Ganges: With much excitement our speed has been increased 5x to 10 mbp. This is the fastest Wifi in our Canadian network.

Port McNeil: Speed increased to 3 mbps/ 2 new antennas installed

Townsite Marina(Nanaimo): Speed increased to 10 mbps/ new antenna installed to improve coverage under the sheds

Speed Test our Network:Check out the speed of our network. If you get less than 2 mbps, then take a screen shot and e-mail them to me at kk@bbxpress.net.

Here is the link: www.speedtest.net or click on the image below. It is a great tool that shows download, upload and latency. Latency is very important for applications such as gaming and voice over internet. My i phone get absolutely brutal upload of up to 500 ms so forget about voip- but it's very handy.

Here's what it looks like: 

One of the truly frustrating things about crossing borders is the high cost of roaming. If you use our service, you know that a huge benefit is speed and no roaming costs. If you plan carefully you can also roam with your cell phone without paying roaming fees. 

So here is the idea:

Use your iphone as a handset for skype. If you have not used Skype it allows you to make calls for about 1 cent a minute internationally. If you have been thinking about an iphone- then you should buy one as it is truly amazing and works incredibly well with the BroadbandXpress Networked Boat.

The one drawback is the cost of roaming accross borders. If you are on the boat then your networked boat will save you a fortune in roaming fees and also allow you to collect all your e-mails like you are in your home country. Just use the WiFi connection in your iphone to connect to your networked boat. Once you are connected you can use the skype application that you can load onto your iphone for skype. Forward your cell phone to your skype number and receive
calls  for about one cent per minute. It is free if you call skype users.

This is not the most simple concept- so test out the skpe application on your computer with your headset. Once you are comfortable with the application then try loading it onto your iphone.


Here's the simnplified instructions to make this work:

1: Know the broadcast name of your Networked Boat

2: Know the security key of your Neworked Boat

3: Turn on the WiFi of your iphone

4: Connect to your Networked Boat

5: Turn on the skype application

Of course your have to be connected to the internet before you can make this work. Once connected, you will now be receiving all your e-mails on your iphone and receiving all your calls via skype. AT&T will not allow skpe to run over the network so you need to use your WiFi connection and connect to your own network.

 

You can call forward your iphone to your skype number and get voicemails, connect worldwide for pennies. If you are going accross boarders then you can avoid all the roaming costs of the carriers. Imagine getting voice service at Point Roberts or Deer Harbor Marina- both really horrible cell coverage locations.

I tested this last weekend and it worked very well. Skype has its quirks so it is not perfect- but if you really want to keep your costs down and avoid getting wacked with roaming- it's great!

The link to skype is www.skype.com

 

Here's our lawyer clause:

BroadbandXpress is not affiliated with any cell phone company and does not make any representations about functionality of the skype service. You may be subject to roaming fees from your carrier if you connect to another countries data network so ensure that data roaming is disabled. We are not a support desk for the iphone or skype and will not answer any questions. This is just an application that we think works well. Is is not a paid portion of your broadbandXpress service so lack of function is not a condition of our service.

 

The calculation of the power of wireless hardware and antenna is a very complicated discussion and you need a very good calculator. Everyone keeps asking me the right solution and I always recommend using an external antenna no matter what solution you choose. I have taken some time to prepare an overview of how to evaluate the power of wireless hardware and simplified our online store to put the amount of power in dBm on each product. The important thing to remember is dBm is a logrithmic value and each 3 dBm gain reflects a 100% increase in power. I have provided a quick overview to help everyone understand the WiFi world a little better. The computer manufacturers are concerned with battery life and generally built in WiFi is horrible at connecting in the outdoor setting. Anyway- here we go with the lesson on WiFi power:

 

OVERALL POWER OF EQUIPMENT:
Wireless professionals measure their output of their solutions in decibels or the short term for wireless power(dBm) and you need to know how to calculate this to compare solutions. You need to add up all the components of your wireless installation to come to the total power of your installation. Your wireless device and the antenna add power while the wire and the connectors lose power(dBm). Here is a simplified example:

WiFi device in dBm:
(convert the power of the WiFi device from Milliwatts(mW) to decibels of wireless power(dBm):

200 MW device :                                    23 dBm
Plus the gain of antenna
10 dbi antenna:                                     10 dBm
Total power before connectors and wire:  33 dBm

Minus

30 feet of lmr solid core cable:                 -3 dBm
Minus connectors at each end:                 -1 dBm
Total loss        :                                      -4 dBm

Total power of your installation:                29 dBm
 
An excellent quality installation should provide 30-35 dBm of gain and connect to a commercial grade WiFi provider at 2 miles. A 30 dBm power installation is 1000 mW of power of 1 watt.


WHAT IS THE POWER OF MY COMPUTER’S BUILT IN WIFI?:
The mini pci chipset built into most computers is 30-60 mw of power and provide or 14.8 dBm of power.This is inadequate to connect beyond 200-300 feet.

Here is an example of a mini pci card-you can see it is very small and the antenna connected to it can be very poor. An external device and antenna is always better.

 

 

ANTENNAS:
The power and quality of the antenna is crucial. Purchase an exterior antenna that has been specially manufactured for the marine market. A regular antenna without UV protection will degrade quickly and its performance will deteriorate quickly. Purchase an onmi antenna with 8-12 dbi of gain so you do not have to overpower the antenna with amplifiers.

AMPLIFIERS:
Amplifyers should not be used in a quality installation as they amplify noise, cause interference and degrade quickly.

CABELING:
Use a solid core copper cable with no splices. The cable should made at a certified cabling facility to avoid poor crimping in the field by technicians. Very few technicians can adequately crimp cables so avoid this at all costs as it is very time consuming to  route cable. Stranded cables should not be used as the loss in signal and power is much larger than solid core cable.

SCANNING UTILITY:
In most marinas there are multiple networks available so ensure that you have disabled your internal weak wireless device and enabled the utility that comes with your more powerful wireless hardware. This will greatly increase the performance of your installation.

You can purchase a wide variety of WiFi hardware solution from our online store. The power of each solution is provided in both dBm for you easy use.

INTERNET ACCESS ON THE WATER- A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW

There are two primary alternatives for boaters in the Washington and BC who want to access the internet while cruising: 3 G cellular service or WiFi. In this article we will explain the services in easy to understand terminology and then examine these alternatives based on 3 criteria: price, allowable data, contract term, speed, availability, quality of service, roaming and equipment.

SPEED: The measure of speed in the article is kilobits per second (kbps). For a basis of comparison top dialup speed in the US is commonly 56 kbps. Common dsl in your home is 768kbps to 3000 kbps of more commonly known as Megabits per second(mbps). The best speed from cable in Washington is Comcast with speeds that commonly reaching 6mbps to a high of 30mbps for upgraded workplace solutions.

WHAT IS 3 G CELLULAR: 3G is the wide are cellular network that currently offers the highest speed. In this article we use the Verizon high speed wireless card as the benchmark as it is the most well know and very reliable. In Canada, Rogers or Telus should be similar.

WHAT IS WIFI: WiFi is the common name for the radio broadcast in the 2.4 GHz band and offers 11 channels of broadcast. It is a line of sight technology and can offer service speeds up to 54 Mbits with distances up to 5 miles with external antennas. We will use BroadbandXpress as the benchmark in this article as it has 110 locations in Washington and BC markets

Now lets benchmark the 2 services:

PRICE:

Verizon: $79.99 per month($59.99 per month 12-24 month contract with approx extra $20.00 in taxes-varies per district) BroadbandXpress: $24.91 per month based upon $299.99 prepaid annual service(short term plans of $10.95 available) Annual Subscription Cost: Verizon $959.88/BroadbandXpress $299.99

ALLOWABLE DATA:

Roaming between countries is an issue that needs to be reviewed very carefully when using cell company data plans. Huge roaming costs can be incurred. In addition, Verizon has a specific data cap and no warning is given when you exceed the limit. The rule is download movies and other applications from home and do not run any peer to peer networks on any network. The direct line for Verizon Wireless global is 908-559-4899. Call them to verify all the details before your trip to ensure no surprises.

Verizon: 5GB limit per monthly billing cycle(5120 megabyte-MB): excess charge of $.25 MB in US Typical file size: digital photo 6MB/Movie 4000MB-8000 MB Cost to view a 4 GB movie if you exceed download limit USA: $1,000.00 BroadbandXpress: no caps-does not support movie downloads or file sharing

CONTRACT TERM:

Verizon:12-24 month(discounts on equipment for longer term) BroadbandXpress: 24 hours, 72hours, 7 days, 30 days, 1 year SPEED: Verizon: download 600kbps-1400kpbs(1.4 mbps) BroadbandXpress: download: 2200 kbps-10,000 kbps(10 mbps) shared- speed may be less and depends upon quality of equipment used. AVAILABILITY: Verizon: generally everywhere there is a good cell signal. Poor cell signal will deteriorate data performance. Point Roberts and Deer Harbor are 2 locations with extremely poor signal quality and no service. Large gaps in service in Canada. BroadbandXpress: Available only in line of site of their 110 locations in Washington and BC. Go to www.bbxpress.net for more detailed information.

QUALITY OF SERVICE:

Verizon: Excellent for normal web usage. Large latency of 200-300 milliseconds makes internet applications such as gaming, skype, vonage too poor for most users. BroadbandXpress: Excellent in coverage areas. Requires BroadbandXpress hardware for quality of service. Latency is acceptable generally at 20-50 milliseconds. To adequately test the download, upload and latency of any broadband network go to www.speedtest.net and run a test.

ROAMING: Verizon: Roaming into Canada an additional cost under national plan: $2.00 per MB Cost of send a typical 6 MB high resolution digital photo: $12.00 Cost to view a 4GB movie if you roam into Canada: $8,000.00 BroadbandXpress: No roaming fee. All locations included.

EQUIPMENT: Verizon: $99.99-$199.99 for usb or other device. BroadbandXpress: $89.99 for standard usb and up to $899.99 for a complete onboard wireless network

OVERALL: Each service has its positives and negatives. The overall minimum cost of the Verizon service is approx $1059 with their minimum hardware versus $389.98 for the BroadbandXpress service with minimum recommended hardware. The coverage area of the Verizon service is vastly superior in the United States but the speed is much slower. The most import difference is the huge cost of exceeding your allowable data plan under the Verizon service plus the excessive cost of data roaming. Our most important recommendation is do your homework and make sure you test the services and are familiar with the hardware 30-60 days before you will depend upon it.

If you want to avoid our Friend below, watch out for the roaming.

 

 

1: Connecting with your built in Hardware

If you are trying to connect to one of our locations with your built in wireless or an iphone/ipod touch- forget it!

You simply cannot connect with any reliable speed or quality of service without a high quality/high power wifi device. Buy it from BroadbandXpress and you will get support from our technicians as they are familiar with the utilities. 

2: Long Range Antennas:

The long range antennas will provide you with at least 2 miles of coverage. Greg and I spent a whole day at Shaw Island connecting to the Friday Harbor site and the results were surprisingly good. The long range USB is not ideal for a long range solution due to the lower power of the device. Whichever solution you use - an external antenna will radically improve your quality of service. The cable is especially important. Use only a solid core copper cable and do not splice it. One of our favorite customers from Shilshole was having very different speeds everyday and we could not figure out what was wrong. The customer had spliced the cable himself- 2 years of frustration for him and us.

  3: Connecting with your BBX USB:

 

Greg and I have been on many boats in the last month and there are a few things that we are seeing:

A: Not disabling your built in wireless adapter - this must be done to prevent the 2 devices from fighting.

B: Not using the WiFi utility that comes with the USB. Shown below is the utility that comes with the USB device. If you do not see this utility then download it from the disk that came with the device or go to our online store and download the utility. Just go to the product and you will see the download link for the utility.

Here is the utility shown below:   

 

 

 

4: BroadbandXpress did not work anywhere I went????

I hear this issue a few times a month and it is very frustrating to us and especially to you. It absolutely puts me in the worst mood possible to hear someone say your network does not work. The issues are usually very simple to solve and usually involve software not being properly installed. Sometimes the software needs to be reloaded. We have all the instruction manuals posted online in our online store. We include them in new sales but you may have thrown them out. Print them and keep them on the boat.

If you have more than one experience in a row with bad service or inconsistent signal- e-mail me at kk@bbxpress.net. I will respond quickly with a solution.

We have the occaisonal issue, but rarely does an issue go on for a long time unless there is a undetectible problem. This is an unlicenced spectrum so there will be issues at times hard to detect. Let me know if there are any issues that are persisting over a long time.

Poulsbo: We have added 2 new antennas to improve service to the boatsheds at the back of the Poulsbo marina.  Both of these new antennas are on the Poulsbo Yacht Club Building - one aims at the rear of the Port of Poulsbo marina (new red zone) to cover the blind spot.   The second antenna (green zone) now points directly at Liberty Bay Marina. These new broadcast antennas are high priced and high quality to improve coverage. We are now working with the isp to increase the speed at this location to 5 mbps versus the 1.5 mbps that now exists.

Pleasant Harbor:We have added an antenna on the dock to improve coverage and get under the boat houses. We are also increasing available speed to 3 mbps from 1.5 mbps.

   

Coal Harbour: We have added and antenna on "A" dock to triple the coverage. There were a few dead spots so we hope this will once and for all create a bullet proof location.

Blaine: There has been some very valid complaints at Blaine regarding reliability. This location is on a very reliable fiber backbone with the highest bandwidth possible up to 10 mpbs. We have installed a new radio and new broadcast location: May 8, 2009

 

Semiahmoo Marina: We have installed a new antenna and raised it for much better performance: May 9, 2009