OCENS vs. Predictwind for Iridium GO

[Suijin]

I just purchased an Iridium Go through OCENS (spotted Chris Parker at their booth at the boat show and he talked me into it. So I have their SIM card.

Does anyone have practical experience with both services and can discuss the pros and cons? I’m primarily interested in weather info/data, email, and texting. Will probably go unlimited but the ability to scale service plans up and down is important.

[Sea Lyon]

We are making the same comparison , we almost bought from OCENS at show as well. We are heading to Bahamas then Eastern Caribbean and will be using Chris Parker weather info,do you know if his stuff is some how more available on the OCENS platform? ( His site has a link to OCENS)

Like you we are interested in Email as well , I see OCENS has a email app but not sure about Predict Wind.

Also noticed that Predict Wind equipment package is a little cheaper than OCENS but not sure if both have same equipment.

I am really kind of confused on which one we want. Looks like both good companies.

[Suijin]

Chris will deliver his content to you by email, text, or SSB, but I’m assuming his preferred method is the first two as it’s asynchronous and so much more convenient to his workflow.

I guess my real question was who’s SIM card to go with. Since they are both just resellers, and what you’re really subscribing to are their services/apps on top of that it does not really matter. But getting feedback on which apps/services are better, and better for the dollar, would be nice.

Iridium offers email through their service (the app is free on their site) but if there is a more usable app out there I want to know who offers it.

[john61ct]

GO! is a generic tcp/ip connection.

But super-limited bandwidth, you're charged for any modern style app's heavy overheads

Think back to when going from 1200 baud to 2400 was a big deal.

The GO! apps are just designed to make more efficient use, not waste the bandwidth, take advantage of store-and-forward rather than timing out with an error when there are delays in the high latency connection.

Any text-based protocol is fine, email used to be like that, but images need to be relatively low-res, small and well compressed.

Get to know the Linux CLI and Pine and you're all set.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by Suijin

I guess my real question was who’s SIM card to go with.

I'm confused. Was not aware that different "on top" service providers can offer different base Iridium plans.

I thought all SIMs were the same? If not, is there a central spot to compare the different offerings, just talking about the base per-month per MB comms service for now, not the added-value weather offerings

[KatMarine]

The difference is that when you by from Predictwind they are not selling an email app (that comes with Iridium GO) but they are selling weather and departure and trip planning. They are a direct competitor to Chris Parker.

Predictwind will charge you an additional $$$ amount to get their weather/trip planning service. I compared and it's more $$$ for a subscription to OCENs mail AND Chris Parkers services. However, it's quality that counts.

I'm going to pay for both and see who wins in the quality dept. One long passage will do it.

[jdazey]

Predictwind ls global. Chris Parker (MWXC) not so much, but he is good for the Bahamas/Caribbean.


Cheers,

[AllenRbrts]

I have an iridium Go, PredictWind and Chris Parker daily forecast. Chris’ forecast is awesome if your are in his zone. Chris gives the underlying why to the PredictWind graphics. If you want to receive your existing email with the Go, then ocens email or something similar is critical. I decided to have just chris’ forecasts come in to the Go email so I don’t have to worry about the inbound stream getting clogged with emails that can wait. I tell friends and family to text me if they need to reach me. I don’t think it is that important who your iridium SIM card provider is.