One of the most important things to me and my crew is the ability to connect to the Internet for voyage planning, staying in touch with family, social media, and relaxation. Having a reliable setup has always been one of my top goals, usually leveraging several technologies. Rendezvous has a similar setup to some of my other boats, but with some modifications and improvements.
Internet Defined
I find that defining what “having Internet” means is pretty important when scoping out a new system for myself or a client. It means very different things to each person or setup, and can be very simple, or very complex. For me, it means a few things:
- On-board WiFi network offering 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands and both a private and guest network
- Managed network – similar to what I wrote about in Managing internet usage on your boat, I want my networks to have priorities for various devices, and ensure I always have connectivity for critical things.
- LTE internet source – one of my sources for internet connectivity will be from LTE SIM cards, and I would like to have the ability to switch between at least 2. I do not need the ability to have two active all the time. I need the ability to control roaming, which SIM is in use, and to set bandwidth/usage alerts.
- WiFi internet source – my backup source of internet is 2.4Ghz/5Ghz remote WiFi networks. I need to be able to connect to various networks that I see, with or without passwords, and boost them so I can use them aboard.
- Ethernet ports – certain critical items need to be directly cabled into my local network so that they have always on access both to the internet, but also to local devices for higher speed transfers.
