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Cell phones at sea: cruise lines wire their ships for the latest telecommunications craze.

Article Excerpt
As Princess Cruises' Sapphire Princess returned from the wilds of Alaska, the coast of British Columbia was clearly in sight. As if on cue, throngs of passengers crowded ondeck to turn on their cell phones. Almost in unison, they began chatting with friends and family hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away.

Telecommunications at sea have come long way since the days of radio rooms. Early in this decade, advances in satellite communications made ship-to-shore calling easier and more affordable than ever. Prices dropped from more than $15 a minute to about half of that--and now seem to have stabilized at those rates.

The next evolution was the advent of internet access, which has become ubiquitous on virtually every cruise liner afloat. Prices for surfing the web hover around 50 cents to 75 cents a minute; and passengers can access their personal e-mail accounts on Hotmail, Yahoo, or America Online--just like at home. Meanwhile, those with laptop computers can enjoy wireless access throughout the ship thanks to WiFi "hotspots" onboard, which also have become mainstream over the past two years.

Along the way, cruise lines have experimented with various other ways of getting connected, some of which did not catch on. Certain ships provided internet access in every cabin. This was accomplished by installing dataports (phone-like jacks for plugging in a computer). Of course, passengers had to provide their own laptops, which not everyone owns. In addition, the connection was by means of a dial-up system, and people were dissatisfied due to slow speed...

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