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Once upon a time,
before megayachts existed, a Yankee whaler heading out to the Pacific
sent his last letter home via a “mail chest” located next
to a commonly used Galapagos watering anchorage, and probably received
his next news from family when he returned to that same chest a couple
of years later. Nowadays, of course, that fisherman would be sailing
under skies teeming with satellites enabling voice and e-mail connections,
showering down GPS and weather data, and more. We can be blasé
about sat technology; that is, until we try to provide broadband Internet
access to yachts offshore. That’s hard.
“Broadband”
itself is vague. For many home users it just means a greater than 100-Kbps
cable or ISDN connection that loads graphically busy Web pages almost
instantly. Business users may be used to multiple Mbps fiber networks
permitting the likes of high-resolution video conferencing. Regardless,
most broadband users don’t bat an eye at hefty e-mails with attached
photos or work files; costs and technological details are fairly trivial.
But if we want some
level of broadband onboard—be it for any of the uses above or
offshore-specific tasks like super-fine weather imagery or video medical
consulting—the details become quite important. Take the old bits
and bytes confusion. A bit is your basic digital on/off signal, and
eight bits make a byte, which might be a character of text or a particle
of code. For reasons unknown, communication is measured in bits but
file sizes are measured in bytes. In other words, a 1-megabyte (MB)
file coming through a 56-kilobit-per-second (Kbps) modem—the old
telephone line standard—does not move at 1,000 divided by 56 seconds
speed, but rather eight times slower. And that’s if the modem
is operating at “optimal” speed, which is rare.
Now, as opined, if
your broadband connection is always on for a reasonable flat rate, and
the visual data speed doesn’t frustrate you, the details don’t
matter much. However, picture yourself as a megayacht captain with a
$30,000 Inmarsat B system only able to go online at a somewhat pokey
64 Kbps, yet costing about nine dollars a minute. Bits and bytes matter
when that 3-MB music cut ka-chings at about $75. I sat in on a seminar
where such captains shared war stories. Many have become their own network
administrators or have specialists on-call, due to incidents like “the
$50,000 satphone bill.” Usually the culprit is some software that
expects an “always on” Internet link and manages to dial
out of the yacht, trying to be helpful, and leaves the line open. Apparently
even megayacht owners blanch at such expenses.
While the hunt is on
for more land-like value and speed, there are sound reasons for high hardware
and airtime costs. Putting up a satellite constellation with its attendant
earth stations does involve rocket science, not to mention dense international
regulations and financial daring. A modern communications satellite might
measure 100 feet across its 10,000-watt solar-generating appendages and
contain $200 million worth of gear. And service calls are obviously a
problem! Plus, each of the various distinct satellite schemes has its
problems as well.
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