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Incorrect. Packet radio is alive, well, and thriving, especially in applications where Internet access is severely limited or completely absent. The prima facie example of this is Winlink, which is popular both with operators who provide emergency communication in disaster areas, and with sailors on small vessels (where the method is better known as Sailmail).

That said, while an interesting experiment, it's likely that the transaction described in the OP violated FCC Rules. See 47 CFR 97.113(a)(2):

No amateur station shall transmit: ...Communications for hire or for material compensation, direct or indirect, paid or promised, except as otherwise provided in these rules...

I've been a licensed amateur radio operator for over 30 years.

There's something like this already working: SailMail. This is email for sailors, using a network of small radio stations around the world that talk to boats and to each other. It's very slow by modern standards; it makes dial-up look fast. It's strictly email, being a store and forward system. But it's a cheap, effective way to get a message to or from a small sailboat in the middle of an ocean. Coverage is worldwide. People have sailed around the globe without losing connectivity.

The guy who set it up is into yacht racing; he won the transatlantic sailing speed record in 2001.

As a cheap way to do email: http://www.sailmail.com/

If you get sailmail, plan for some more battery capacity.

As a cheap way to do email: http://www.sailmail.com/

oops, I meant sailmail, similar sounding name to me, i goofed. http://www.sailmail.com/ I'm a ham, not a sailor.

My family have cruised for 9 years now, using Winlink the whole time. It's really awesome being able to get and send email out in the middle of a 3-week passage without any land or other vessels even in VHF (line-of-sight) range. It's undeniably slow (spring the cash for the Pactor-3 modem; it helps substantially), with speeds typically in the neighborhood of 1 kbps (can be a couple multiples better or worse depending on distance, propagation conditions, interference from other users, and the quality of your radio/antenna). You're limited to plain text emails, but attachments are supported (GRIB files are compact meteorological reports that can fit decent levels of detail and coverage in 30 KB and are great for purposes of planning a route; we usually pull one or two a day).

It *IS* a HAM radio operation, with the limitations that imposes. There's no particular security or privacy, you're not allowed to discuss business matters, there's no guarantee of service, and you must have a General-class (or higher) HAM radio license (your email is callsign@winlink.org, for example on the boat we use KD7NDG {at} winlink {dot} org). On the other hand, the service is provided free of charge (although the equipment isn't cheap, it's better than a satellite phone except possibly over the very short term). They don't provide true Internet access - you don't get an IP address, you can't browse the web or run SSH over it, and it's dependent upon the base station operator having their computer online and connected to their radio (there are usually a few stations reachable at some time of day or another from anywhere though, so even if one goes offline for a bit there's a chance to connect).

As an alternative to Winlink, there's also a commercial service called Sailmail that uses the same modems and protocols, but operates on the maritime HF bands (rather than the amateur bands). The cost is pretty low, and there's no restriction against commercial use that I know of, but the other limitations (especially lack of privacy) are mostly still there. There are also other restrictions imposed by the (corporate) operators of the base stations. That said, a lot of our cruising friends use it happily enough. http://sailmail.com/

Both Winlink 2000 and Sailmail use a client called Airmail, which is a basic but functional email client (I'd have called it good back in 2001 when there were still mainstream clients without the ability to spell check as you typed, but it hasn't improved as much as might have been expected during that time). One nice feature of Airmail is that, while it is designed to call over the Pactor modem, it also offers a telnet connection mode for when you have an actual Internet connection; even a dial-up link will be much faster than the radio link, and isn't vulnerable to interference.

Much depends on where you are going to be, exactly what access you want, and how much you are willing to pay.

Long distance cruisers generally go for SSB-based email (either Sailmail or Winlink) because it's cheap and relatively reliable. Of course, "reliable" in this context means that depending on the HF propagation conditions you can probably get an email message out sometime that day. And you are limited to short, text-only messages. Still, these days you can update blogs, Facebook, etc. via email...

Other systems like Ocens are also available for email via Iridium.

After that, if you are offshore and away from GSM coverage, you start talking about real bucks. Inmarsat is the most common. Iridium, Inmarsat, Globalstar, etc. all pretty much have two things in common - they are slow compared to land-based systems and they bill by the bit.. a lot. Streaming video and surfing Spring Break Girls Gone Wild is probably not in the cards. Hell, even checking a webmail email account is not really feasible unless you are Carlos Slim and own a telephone company.

So, that's a long way of getting around to saying this: In the past 10 years, not a lot has changed. Inshore, close to cell coverage, you can do very well. Offshore, you are still pretty much stuck with the same old systems that were in place 10 years ago, only now they are more expensive. Oh, and in the case of Globalstar, they are also less reliable now.

Cruising sailors have dealt with this problem for years. If you don't know, "cruising" is where you quit your job and live on a sailboat in the Caribean, spending your days mostly looking for food and booze. I am so jealous of these folks. Anyway, "Cruising World" magazine might have some ads. I've heard of Sailmail, but don't know how their services rate. Might be a place to start anyway.

http://www.sailmail.com/

As far as my experience goes, this is fine for very low bandwidth data (sub-100KB text-only email) but no good for anything else. I used an SSB radio with a Pactor modem and SailMail while crossing the Atlantic, and it was great for staying in touch with friends but it wouldn't handle attachments, so photos and suchlike were out of the question. A lot of the sailors I've met opt for satphones with data capabilities, from providers such as Thuraya, which give something like 9600 baud at a reasonable cost, but the coverage isn't as complete as what you'll get with SSB. Either way, there's no chance a student can afford these: an SSB with a modem is way more expensive than a cheap satphone, and the cheapest Thuraya Hughes phone I found was around $500 second-hand (excluding any data topups).

It's pretty clear if you know a bit about marine data comms that Ubergamer's data quotas are actually extremely generous: 100 minutes of net access and permanent e-mail use with a megabyte message limit is a good deal. My advice would be to use a WordPress blog and set up the e-mail posting option, forget photographs or perhaps use them as part of the 100 minutes quota. Forget Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites; point your friends at your blog and stay in touch via e-mail and the occasional phone call (assuming you get a reasonable voice quota). Read more books, get to know the people you're sailing with and Enjoy the travels!

I seem to remember my friend's Iridium equipment for his yacht was something like $25,000-$50,000. The Skymate service uses a $1,000-odd receiver/dish. That difference in equipment cost pretty much insulates Skymate from price comparisons with Iridum.

Actually, it sounds like SailMail offers very similar services for a much cheaper fee, apparently $250 a year. (That's up from $100 when I'd first heard of them - yikes). Sailmail uses SSB radio which I think is less spiffy than satellite, but I understand it does the job, and there's a 10k limit on messages instead of the rather pathetic 1k limit from Skymate. Worth a look.

D

The last time I sailed across the ocean last July (in the Pacific Cup Race) we used an Iridium phone with the data option. We were able to send back a couple of digital pictures but the phone bill for the week was something like $200. Next time we'll save the pix till we hit land.

Try www.sailmail.com.

You need SSB radio. It's a non profit service. You aren't going to be able to surf with it, but it works for e-mail. Stan Honey, a fairly legendary ocean racer and tech head, runs it.

John.

www.sailmail.com

I'm not so familar with that, I guess you are supposed to be an regular sailor to use it.

Go and find out yourself.

Jii

Take a look at http://www.sailmail.com. They may be your best bet for messages.

Try SailMail.