WIFI aboard

Apologies in advance. I know this has been covered to some degree here, but I would like to have a total understanding.

What, if any, connectability can you have while undersail? I understand there is an extensive list here of bars and restaurants that have wifi, but as I interpret it, some of you here have iPads or Phones that you navigate off of? Are you doing this through a local carrier? I would ideally like to have something on board to check weather conditions, wind, swell, etc while planning the days trip. Is this a possibility while having only American connectivity? I have an ATT hotspot available to me, but when contacted they intimated that service would be spotty if anything while on the water. Additionally, their rates are way more expensive than purchasing an international plan for the cell.

Thanks for any direction you can provide.

Some of the charter companies have wifi on board. You sign on and pay for usage by the day. Rates are reasonable. Our boat is with Horizon who have their boats equipped with systems using ALG Link.

Navigators using iPads or iPhones will most likely be using the GPS on the device and a downloaded version of the charts. I use Navionics and have been very happy with it in the UK - will be interested to see how it fares in the BVI in a few weeks time (yeah!). Looking over some of the Navionics charts of the BVI some of the contours are a bit other wordly (speaking as someone married to a geologist) when you zoom-in, so don't plan on relying on them too much (Team Vestas anyone?)

If you go this route - you need the 3G version of the iPad not just the wifi one, as wifi-only does not have GPS.

Dorothy I too need an education. Before I purchase the charts from Navionics for my IPad. Will they work with my IPad if I don't have any 3g or 4g contracts? My IPad is good for wifi or 4g but I have only used it on wifi

Yes. The 3/4g devices have a gps chip whereas the wifi only versions do not.

Turn off wifi, go outside and use one of your map apps to navigate down the block. It should work fine.

Ok I'm going to give it a try-- As soon As The SNOW Stops! Like hopefully in a couple of days

AT&T is the best in the Virgin Islands. They have LTE coverage throughout the USVI and 4G in the BVI. AT&T has several international packages, check them out. All western facing anchorages which see STT will receive coverage for free. I have a mifi router and buy a Lime card for data. 5 gigs is about $50, plenty of data unless you are streaming.

I have an iPad 2, it does not have cellular connectivity, it connects to the internet via wifi. It does not have an internal GPS. I purchased a Dual GPS, hockey puck sized device which connects to my iPad via Bluetooth. With this setup, I can use my iPad for navigation without having to connect to the Internet. This would solve one of your issues (navigation) but it does not address your need to connect to Internet to get weather info.

On our boat and every boat in TMM's fleet, a wifi router is provided at no cost. It provides Internet via the digicel cell service. There is no cost at all to the charterers for the service or the device. We have found it to provide relatively good connection speed ( email, web surfing, Facebook, etc) throughout the BVI's. It's not fast enough to stream video (Netflix)

Hope this helps,

Tony

Lame question....I have at&t and would like to know if the phone is smart enough to know when the signal is free from USVI or do I need to toggle something to grab the free signal.

Karen

If is says "roaming" then you're paying out the you-know-what unless you have an international plan.

You can turn off roaming data or all roaming if you want it to not allow you to use it except on domestic service.

it says AT&T in the top left 3G, 4G, or LTE, just like at home. If it says Lime or Digicel, it's not