Captain Cameron Murray (left) is flanked by First Officer Paul Barkalow (right). Barkalow, who has Wi-Fi Internet access on the dock, said he would love to surf the Net offshore using Wheat Wireless's new service. For years, mariners like Paul Barkalow had few options for gaining Internet access at sea.
Maritime radio and satellite services are pricey. And cell-phone Web connections usually fizzle out eight miles from shore.
Barkalow, who serves on the crew of a yacht on the East Coast, used to get dial-up Internet service on the dock. But he couldn't use it at sea. Also, downloading pages at the sluggish speed of 19.2 Kbps proved to be painful, he said.
"It was horrendous," Barkalow said.
Luckily for Barkalow and other sea explorers, more and faster Internet options are on the way, thanks to emerging high-speed wireless Internet services.
One company in particular, Wheat Wireless Services of Reston, Virginia, has begun selling a tweaked version of Wi-Fi Internet access that can broadcast signals 30 miles out to sea. The service piggybacks off T1 lines in data centers along the coast and requires radio towers up to 300 feet tall atop coastal buildings. The receiver on the boat is a 4-foot antenna. It costs $7,500 for installation and another $500 a month for unlimited Internet access.
Emissions from the radio towers and antennas meet Federal Communications Commission guidelines, said Wheat President and CEO Forrest Wheat.
As for what seems like a lot of money for Internet access, the service costs are pocket change for commercial cruise ships and millionaires who own yachts, considering what is gained in return, a wireless industry analyst said.
"Basically, they are delivering more than a T1 worth of bandwidth to people," said Daryl Schooler, an analyst with research firm In-Stat/MDR. "Satellite is slower than that and could be tens of thousands of dollars a month."
If it weren't for the hefty price, Barkalow said he'd be the first in line to use the service. He struck a deal with Wheat to pay $200 a month for a scaled-back version of the service. Basically, he taps into the Wi-Fi service when the yacht is stationed at the dock. He can't get it from sea.
"I absolutely adore this service," Barkalow said. "I can be unplugged and ... I do my banking online. I check my stocks and do my (Web) surfing. It's secure."
Schooler had no data to indicate if there is even a demand for offshore Wi-Fi, but he said it is a largely untapped market. While business travelers and college students are eating up Wi-Fi in coffee shops, hardly anyone is paying attention to ship crews and their captive onboard audience, until now.
Two casino cruise ships have signed up to use Wheat's 30-mile wireless service to run their infrastructure -- but not to give Internet access to passengers. Both companies declined interviews because of "the financial and private nature of the transactions that run on their system," a Wheat spokesman said.
"They want people to gamble," said company CEO Wheat. "They don't want them to surf the Internet. (The Internet service) is for the crew."
But Wheat said he hasn't ruled out selling the service to other commercial cruise lines or even selling it on land, especially in rural areas where broadband Internet access is hard to find. But he admits the company would have to overcome physical barriers like mountains and buildings to provide uninterrupted wireless Internet service for 30 miles on land.
"We're out there selling all the time," Wheat said. "We intend to operate as many services as we can."
For Barkalow, that's a breath of fresh sea air.
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