Mobile phone reception on short cruises - how far out do they go?

[happyprecious]

Before you start to rant about how I should put my technology away and enjoy the holiday, I am actually quite capable of doing this, with my iPhone in hand.

I am interested to know if the ship is so far out that it loses mainland coverage or whether you can still connect?
Thanks

[kuldalai]

The mobile phone coverage actually works very well over water. Typically one can pick up a land based signal up to 30 kms off shore . However this depends on the placement of towers on land. So if there are gaps in the coverage on land then there will be gaps at sea. Also important is how close the mobile towers are in each location to the coastline.

Many cruiselines now have mobile coverage via satellite. If you have Overseas Roaming with your home supplier then if that supplier has an agreement with the MNST or whoever then your mobile will work on board , albeit at higher charges . Texting in and out is quite affordable in that case .

[keagle]

I found that the Optus signal dropped out not far on out passed the heads.

[Flipper133]

On our Top End Cruise a couple of years ago, we were quite surprised to find that mobile coverage on board was not that bad...even down the west coast. Only areas where we had no coverage was across the top of Cape Horn and the gulf...but I guess there were not all that many towers up there.

cheers