Lessons Learned From S/Y Farfalla
Posted: Mar 23, 2020
S/Y Farfalla's captain requested support as he had no cellular data; full bars showing with an active SIM but nothing. Our engineers quickly inspected the vessel set-up and identified that the router was an American only version, and was quite old. This means that coverage, particularly in the Caribbean, was not as reliable as the latest models (CAT 6, CAT 12). However, regardless of whether you have the latest model, if the set-up is not optimized you’ll still have trouble connecting (e.g. long cable runs of 10M+ / splitters / extensions / multiple connectors).
We advised on the problem and recommended that a router upgrade, together with adding a high gain antenna to increase reception and range, was the ideal solution. The challenge was then installing it inside of a 24 hour period before the boat sailed.
The team worked hard to make the set-up cleaner; straight connectors to the PepWave router and moving the primary antenna to the AUX port, and the new AX100 to the main antenna port. After that, new connectors were put on the spreader and the end result was impressive; 20Mbps down where previously there was either a poor experience, or no service at all.