If you’ve had to travel for business or pleasure and need access to the Intenet to do your job whether it be to connect securely to your office or home to access resources or just to spoof that your within the same country to access certain content, this article is going to hopefully help you out. There are many solutions to the situation.
Most network and cybersecurity experts will advise that when traveling it is a good idea to put some sort of security checkpoint between you and the public Interent. This includes airports, hotels, coffee shops, and even cruise ships. You are advised to work over a VPN (virtual private network) so that your personal data remains secure or use a portable travel router to separate you from the public network connection.
For the most part, this is great advice and most places will not fight you in using these solutions in order to protect yourself. However, cruise lines frown over you using such technology while onboard. Some onboard networks are designed and setup to block VPNs and forbid the use of travel routers. Their main reason for forbidding these items they say is for safety, but for the most part it’s all about access to your wallet. This is primarily relevant to travel routers. Most people who bring travel routers onboard ships are using them to essentially “split” or share a single Wi-Fi account with multiple devices as to prevent having to purchase a multi-device plan. Most people are not bringing them for work purposes.
Most venues don”t really care what you attach to their network. It is merely an amenity that they are providing their guests to enhance their experience. I have always endorsed bringing a travel router to clients to make sure that their data and information remain secure from the rest of the peeping public. However, the cruise ship lines don’t see Internet as an amentiy to give away to their guests. It is a money making item for them similar to a beverage or dining package. They want you to have to buy the package and one for every device you’re intending to use.
With recent developments on forbidding certain network equipment onboard ship, one needs to really look at the loonacy of this greediness. People in genearal have a choice, they can purchase Internet onboard ship or utilize their cell phones for Internet connectivity, regardless of cost. In fact, it would be cheaper to get an International data plan for your phone for the short time, than to pay for Internet onboard ship which has potential to work and not work reliably. In this scenario, you’d need to piggyback other devices off your mobile device to get Internet access. One of these methods is to tether a travel router to your phone. If certain lines are not allowing travel routers to force you to buy their Internet, they are forbidding you from sharing other Internet services as well.
If I knew that where I am going is going to prevent me fromd accessing the Internet freely to do my work either personal or professionally, I would find ways to get around the problem.
