Browsing the Web via Cell Phone

By Daniel Piltch, Marine Computer Systems
(as originally published in Cruising World March 2001 Issue) 
  See Also:

Cellular Conundrum

Calling In From The Wide Blue Yonder

Communication Comparison Charts
 

Here are some tips to help keep costs down if you do choose to access the World Wide Web via your satellite phone. Don't browse aimlessly. The time to do that and stumble over exceptionally cool but unexpected stuff is from home, when you can bookmark the pages that will be useful later. Also from home, bookmark the pages that contain the information you actually need. You'll then avoid the time-consuming steps of getting to them from a website's home page. The fewer pages you look at, the less time you'll spend online, and the lower the costs will be.

Avoid downloading images. Images take up an exponentially larger amount of space than text, so they take longer to download and your connection costs go up. The 48-hour surface-forecast chart for the North Atlantic is anywhere from four to 15 times larger than the text forecast for the same area. If you want charts, be selective-many of them are also available over the weather fax. Before you leave your inexpensive shoreside connection, find sites with smaller images or lots of text information, and bookmark them.

Most browsers will automatically download both text and images from each web page, but you won't want to wait for that or pay for it. Reset your browser options so you can avoid downloading graphics and images that you don't want. Most browsers will let you view images individually. While you're at it, disable Java but leave JavaScript enabled, as some sites won't work without it. These adjustments will take some getting used to, but better to fumble around onshore than when you're on a satellite connection.