July 05

Watery Wireless Internet Connectivity Extends Boating Bliss

by John Harrington

You are at the office. Your boat is at the dock. The sky is blue. The wind is up. Port Townsend, the San Juans, the Gulf Islands, and beyond beckon. You’re wondering, “Can I run my practice off a Blackberry and a cellphone from the cockpit of my ‘sanity preserver’ in Desolation Sound?”

If you want to replicate a real office setting, the answer is “absolutely not.” You are not revising pleadings and reviewing hundreds of pages of documents on any case over a Blackberry, while dictating to an assistant over a dodgy cell connection behind an island across from Campbell River.

You need full-blown Internet access on a laptop with a nice big screen that is set up with a remote desktop and a virtual private network connection back to your office — the office you want to leave so badly to get out on that boat.

You have work to do — editing, writing, research, big attachments to send and receive — all of it billable, by the way. There is but one fundamental problem: no fast Internet pipe on the boat. Thus, you are stuck at the office.

Not necessarily.

“It’s not a problem anymore in a bunch more places than you’d think,” said Peter Giannacopoulos, a Boston-area networking integrator who has been setting up attorneys’ boats with wireless network hubs and often sophisticated computing equipment and peripherals so they can take advantage of a proliferation of marine Wi-Fi coverage that’s expanding up and down the East Coast (www.myrmidon.net). From Boston Harbor, past Cape Ann, around Cape Cod and up into Maine, “you can get online from onboard.”

“We have thousands of lawyers in this market, and a lot of them want to be on their boats. We started getting calls about it a couple of years ago and it has become a crazy sideline — busy. We do not do the actual wireless base stations, but all the marinas around here are heavily deployed. Now, we have attorney clients who office almost permanently from their boats in Boston Harbor. They have given up their regular offices, at least unofficially. Granted, they have nice boats, but the fact they are on them and their clients enjoy having conferences down at the docks instead of in some office tower is the whole point.” Giannacopoulos said “it’s now a must” for any high-end marina in New England to offer reliable wireless Internet service to permanently moored and visiting boats to remain competitive.

In Seattle, one of the national pioneers of the “networked boat” and the marine Wi-Fi stations that link boats to the Internet on a high-speed connection is Kevin -Keating, CEO of Broadband Xpress (www.bbxpress.net). His company has installed wireless access points in marinas that can also cover areas of open water with long-range onboard Wi-Fi antennas that connect to base stations using the highest amount of Wi-Fi signal power allowed by the FCC. Keating’s installations run from Gig Harbor all the way up to Desolation Sound. Along with Keating’s 70-plus locations, he has roaming agreements in place that provide Internet access at some 350 places, including Tully’s Coffee shops — so a Northwest boater can get online on and off the boat.

“Our typical customers love their boats; some even live on their boats. The service is particularly great for professional people who want to be out, but need to be able to do serious (read paying) work so they can be out,” Keating said. His company’s extended-range antennas and other networking configurations can allow one of Broadband Xpress’s Wi-Fi signals to be picked up across much greater distances than is usually associated with a typical local “hot spot.”

“I can get online from as far away as a half mile out,” Ron Meng, the owner of Islands Marine Center on Lopez Island, said. “His [Keating’s company’s extended range] antenna is great.”

Keating said the key to boating is “being on the boat.” It’s a simple concept, but one that has been a constant thorn in the sides of generations of Northwest boaters who have been hidebound to their careers and physical offices while they pursue the means to own a boat in the first place.

“It’s a real Catch-22,” said Sharon Donovan, a member of the Washington State and Utah State bar associations. Her family owns a sailboat permanently moored in the San Juans. She was able to extend her annual summer cruise to the Gulf Islands and inside passage from 10 days to four weeks last year, because her boat subscribed to the Broadband Xpress network. “I could sit on deck in the morning having coffee in the Sydney Harbor Marina (one of Broadband Xpress’s locations) and work with my office over my virtual desktop. Clients did not know I was not back at my desk. It was great. Being able to do it took so much of the stress out of being away. It really is the first time in years I can say I fully relaxed while we were cruising.”

Giannacopoulos said getting online from onboard might be as easy as having a laptop equipped with a Wi-Fi card — but that it often requires more. “It totally depends where your boat is in relation to the base station. If you’re docked close enough to the access point, less than 150 feet, a Wi-Fi-ready computer, or a computer with a Wi-Fi card inserted on the side will usually do you. But we never leave it to that. It gets trickier when you are on the move, anchored out, or blocked by other boats at the dock. An after-market, long-range antenna is a must, in my opinion. You really ought to go to the Wi-Fi service provider you use to make sure the reception equipment you install is matched up with the Wi-Fi provider’s signal,” he said. “The service providers we work with have been great at recommending the right stuff to our clients.”

In Washington, Keating’s company not only offers wireless hubs and antennas for the on-board portion of the “networked boat,” they are also the service provider and they have staff that will go to a customer’s boat to install the gear. “We have assembled our own system,” he said, noting that standard Wi-Fi hardware has a limited range of maybe 200 feet and is designed for residential or small-office environment areas.

“Regular Wi-Fi cards and Centrino-powered laptops are not designed to operate over marina distances,” he said. “You need higher-powered equipment.” Keating recommends that anyone wanting to get a boat Wi-Fi-ready consult with their intended primary service provider first. Broadband Xpress’s website lists the equipment it sells to its customers.

With the national and Canadian proliferation of marina Wi-Fi, it’s now possible to cruise up and down the U.S and Canadian west coast, across the Gulf Coast, around Florida, and all the way to Nova Scotia, and find a solid Internet connection. “All the providers are banding together,” Keating said. “We all may be going it alone as different companies, but there are roaming agreements in place and they are growing.”

One such cooperative (through Marine Wi-Fi.org) has joined Broadband Xpress and iDockUSA (www.idockusa.com) to offer a 150-access-point network up and down the West Coast.

So, what’s holding you back? This summer, bill your hours from the boat!

John Harrington is a technology writer and frequent speaker on the Internet and networking trends for lawyers. He can be reached at jharrington@saltzone.net.