Wireless technology gives new meaning to ship-to-shore calls

Computerworld - Technologies that have emerged in the past two years have lowered costs for making wireless voice or data calls at sea, creating a revenue incentive for cruise lines and making calls from the middle of nowhere commonplace.

Island Cruises, a small cruise line based in East Sussex, England, was one of the first to enable passengers to use cell phones while on board -- and being an early adopter has paid off, Patrick Manuel, director of IT for the cruise line, said in an interview last week. "The world's making a shift to cellular, and it's considered part of everybody's life," he said.  "Our cruise line customers expect it, and the movement of wireless data to handhelds has definitely made me very happy we can support it."

While at sea, a user's cell phone call is transmitted to small distributed radio antennas that look like ceiling smoke detectors throughout the ship. Those antennas connect via a cable to a satellite dish and from there are transmitted to a satellite in space and then back to land.  The system is on installed Island Cruises' two ships, which can carry a combined total of 3,600 passengers.

Island Cruises gets a portion of the cell phone calling revenue, which Manuel would not disclose. Customers now pay only a fraction of what the calls cost two years ago.

Today, passengers can browse the Internet, send e-mail and make or receive cell phone calls to a party thousands of miles away on board dozens of ships from various cruise lines, according to Manuel and industry analysts.  The per-minute cost ranges from 75 cents for Web browsing to $2to $5 per minute for voice calls, depending on the user's cellular provider, analysts said.

Full-time connections from a phone in a passenger's cabin became possible about a decade ago and at the time cost about $15 per minute. Those prices have dropped to $6 to $8 per minute now, said Rob Marjerison, general manager of Wireless Maritime Services (WMS) in Miramar, Fla., which provides cellular services to Island Cruises.

About five years ago, onboard Internet cafes came into vogue, followed more recently by the growing popularity of Wi-Fi.

"People expect to be able to stay in touch wirelessly these days," Marjerison said.

Manuel said coverage with the WMS system is pervasive and "works well," even though metal onboard a ship makes wireless connections more challenging. The satellite connection tends to create a small delay in voice calls, "but that is generally your expectation when you travel," he said.

Manuel said he investigated a variety of wireless technologies two years ago but settled on WMS partly because it relies on a remote monitoring system provided by LGC Wireless in San Jose.  The remote monitoring is done by WMS from Florida for about 30 ships, to help reduce the number of dropped calls and improve call quality, Manuel said. "We're not in the telephone business," he added.