internet access while on ship

[Kris Shortridge]

I could not find an answer to my question, so I thought I would post it here. My son is getting ready to go out on the ship. We bought him a new laptop so he would be able to take it with him, but is there anything else we need to purchase so he is able to have internet access while at sea? He has mentioned a broadband card, but I don't want to purchase that if it really is not needed. The broadband cards have a monthly fee of about $60 per month and you have to sign up for a 2 year contract. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

[Achseh]

He will not be allowed internet access on his own laptop while at sea. He will have email access through the ship's system and limited internet access there also.

[Steve's Mom]

I am glad you mentioned this Achseh, how about at port stops, can they use their own laptops off the ship? Or does all communication have to be filtered through the ship's services?

[Hoppi aka Angie]

Due to security reasons, he will NOT be able to hook his laptop up to the internet on the ship, nor is there WIFI while out to sea.

He might get to use a computer in his work space to check work e-mail. He will not have access to yahoo or hotmail type accounts while out to sea. Also if he is a jr person, they don't get much time on the computers as the sr people have work to do on the computers. If he is on a larger ship, they may have a computer room, where there are computers that they can use when ever they want.

[Anti M]

When my friend was deployed, he said the emails would sit in the server, incoming and outgoing, until they were all okay'd. Not instantaneous like we have. He also said text only emails came through just fine, but anything with attachments like photos and tons of cute GIFs often wouldn't make it. Sounds like bandwidth limitations on personal emails. Yes, personal communications on and off the ship were screened. I don't know if this is true of every ship for every deployment, but it was for him.

[Achseh]

I would guess, given past experience, that this is the same for every ship, every deployment.

[Debbie]

My son served on the IKE and the REAGAN. He has a laptop, but choose not to take it with him. He said that since he could not use it why take it. We e mailed each other daily. I heard from him more when he was on a ship then any other time. I asked him to check out my web site for my company. He told me he could not. Very limited on what they can pull up. And as mentioned before, no attachments to the e mails. No chance of the computers being infected by an outside source.