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!

 

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.