wifi and internet hot spots or phone rental

Leaving next Saturday on bareboat cruise. Any information about good wifi connectivity for Verizon in the BVI's? My husband needs to stay in touch with his office. Good hotspots or should he look into phone rental for the week?

Depends on how many times a day he needs to check in and what he needs to do. If simple texts or emails are all he needs and only needs to check in once or twice a day, you can get wifi at just about every anchorage that has a bar/restaurant.

If it's anything more than that, I'd suggest hitting the Digicel store in Road Town when you arrive and pick up a mobile mifi device. You should expect to pay around $50 for the device and another ~$30 for access with adequate data to send/receive plenty of photos and documents. It probably won't cost you much more than renting one and you keep the mifi device to use for future trips.

What company are you chartering with? TMM and some others offer free wifi on their boats. You might check with your charter company first before you go any further.

I picked up a Digicel router and I'm quite happy with it for WiFi. I can't tell you about voice over wifi with Verizon, but I'm looking forward to that feature on ATT.

Cheers, RickG

We'll be there May 23rd for a week aboard. I picked up a pretty cheap, no-contract T-Mobile data plan and two Hotspot devices (diff frequencies) for a project at home. Hoping to pick up T-Mobile's GSM service in the BVI to feed WIFI to the phones and the computer.

The Digicel solution seems like a good alternative too...

Corgimenow, as far as VZM in BVI I've read all sorts of experiences with it. Some say you'll pay roaming at 1.99/min and others have said if the hit a St. Thomas tower it was free. There may be some truth in both because it looks like Verizon sold to Claro which is Ameriaca Movil at least in Puerto Rico. I don't think VZN actually exists on PR or ST any more but it looks like they did provide for VZN and legacy Claro CDMA customers with agreements with companies like Open Mobile where they have access without charge (see wikipedia article on Claro especially at the bottom "Relationship With Verizon Wireless". This is about PR but I bet it applies to ST Thomas too. Anyway, you won't get any VZN coverage beyond the western end of the BVI I don't believe.

Gulfsurfer, you are out of luck with T-Mobile in the BVI unless they have roaming and you want to use it. If those wifi devices are unlocked you can put a Digicel/Lime sim in them and use them thay way. I believe both are using 850/1900 Mhz for their frequencies on what they call 4G, it's not LTE speeds, it's 3G/HSPA which many carriers are calling 4G now but you should be able to stream music and use voip with it.

If you are chartering with TMM, it is free and very good.

LTE or not, I saw 7mbps down and 3mbps up on Digicel. Good enough for teleconferencing without jitter.

Cheers, RickG

That's solid and useful speed. Are you using an actual router for that, or a mifi device? Wondering as I know from past posts you have your own boat and might have done a permanent install.

We have the 110V router that runs off our small inverter. I looked at the mifi style, but we did not need to mobility outside of the boat. 3GB pre-paid is $55.

Cheers, RickG

Just got back from an 8 day charter. I had tmobile phones and mifi devices that I have used internationally. The advantage with tmobile international plans are: free data and texting globally.

I had to turn on roaming feature on the iPhones to get the data to work on our phones. The mifi devices do not work in the bvi. The Tmobile representative stated that their contracts are for only 2G and the mifi devices we had required minimum of 3G. I will be renting Digicell next year.

I had good wifi at Peter Island and the bar at BEYC. The wifi at Leverick Bay jumbies did not work and the hotel Leverick Bay worked. The wifi in Roadtown worked if you were near the front desk.

keywords: tmobile international roaming mifi

A couple of charter companies provide free WiFi onboard and most of the rest have WiFi available onboard that you would need to pay for. Check with your broker or the charter company.

Many establishments around the BVI provide free WiFi if you are near enough to pick up the signal, or go ashore for a happy hour drink and to check your emails.....:)

With Verizon, I have an old Alltel plan (from before the merger). I get free calls and data in St. Thomas. However, newer verizon plans are charged 1.99 minute. Took me a while to figure out why I wasn't getting charged while friends with Verizon were.

Does anyone know a source to buy a Digicel Sim card by mail order (before getting to BVI)? I know mrsimcard has lime Sims, but I have heard digicel has better coverage.

I just got off the phone with Verizon, they said they have extended their coverage and now cover most of the BVI's with 3G coverage. It's costing me $40 for a month of usage. With that I get 100 minutes of Talk, 100 text and 100 MB of data.

I'll let you know when I return how it works.

Watch your data 100M isn't very much. It goes quick most plans are Giga of data 1 Gig is 10X 100Meg

I did the international plan in the BVI last year ($25 / 100mb - I didn't need talk or text). The coverage and speed was fine, but like WayneC says, 100 mb doesn't go very far these days. OK for email only. I plan on getting a local Sim this May.

I plan on using the data for mail only, and I won't be using it often. My birthday is while we are on island, so I seem to get a lot of calls from family and some over served friends..lol.

I find myself using my phone to check on delivers and setting up cars,etc. I usually get the international plan, but you still pay $1.99 per minute. This should less be money, and I won't stress out about too many calls.

Happy (early) birthday! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dance.gif" alt="" />

Thank you!

" I get free calls and data in St. Thomas."

unless something drastic has changed in the last few months this is not true, especially data. Verizon is not user friendly in USVI

Hey Colleen, I am planning to do the same plan. Let us know how Verizon works for you.
Be sure and turn off auto updates to conserve data! No since having WAZE or Youtube update itself while in the islands. 2 days to go.... have fun!

I will let you know. I plan on using data only when I'm connected to wifi. I don't want to pay for extra data, I know it can be very expensive.

We are packed and ready to get out of the cold and wet weather here in Ohio!

Strange, yes. But as far as I can tell it's some kind of legacy from ALLTEL. Does not work with normal verizon plans.