For coastal fishermen who are near enough land to get a WiFi connection from their onboard PC or laptop, there could be big money to be saved by using the every expanding voice over Internet protocol (VOIP).
A reader of the UK's Guardian newspaper says he pays $34.99 (20 sterling) a month for the Vonage VOIP service saving "a fortune on calling the US via BT or dialling 10-digit access codes with Onetel". He gets unlimited calls for Canada and the USA and he can even call back to UK numbers via the US for 2 cents a minute. He says he can also patch calls through to his colleagues in New York, Virginia, San diego and LA as though they were all in the same office (for us that would be the same trawl or coastal area. Trawlers landing in foreign harbours with a net connection would also be able to call worldwide to other VOIP points, such us Sydney 3 cents a minutes, Hong Kong 2 cents mins). Americans pay a local call to call him in the UK. WF would be interested to hear from skippers who can make this system (www.vonage.com) work for them - pilar.santamaria@nexusmedia.com
