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posted by janrinok on Sunday January 14 2018, @01:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the facetime-in-peacetime dept.

The CBC reports: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/navy-warship-wifi-1.4481346

The Canadian navy has dropped what its top sailor called the "draconian" policy on the technology and has embarked on a program to install Wi-Fi on each of its warships.

"There are other navies that operate with NATO that have Wi-Fi in far more spaces than we do." said Vice-Admiral Ron Lloyd, commander of the Royal Canadian Navy. "And we're saying 'No you can't have it aboard' — period? That's crazy."

The U.S. navy began installing 4G LTE networks aboard its ships in 2012, while Canadian sailors have over the same period of time been forced to stow their cellphones while at sea — particularly when in secured areas — and rely on the occasional satellite phone conversation with family at home.

Those infrequent chats conducted through "morale phones" were largely dependant on the warship's jammed-up operational network.

Chief Petty Officer 1st Class Michel Vigneault was amazed to see, for the very first time, a sailor having a Facetime conversation with family back home on a smartphone. The moment neatly captured the conundrum he and the top brass have faced in making the navy, which has for a decade been perpetually short of sailors, an appealing place to work. The moment encapsulated two issues: the longstanding prohibition on Wi-Fi coverage aboard warships and the amount of time sailors are away from home.

Both have become central to the retention and recruiting makeover that is underway as part of the Liberal government's recently introduced defence strategy.

The ban on Wi-Fi was an obvious irritant.

"I realized then how important it is. Maybe not for my generation, because we didn't grow up with that, but for younger sailors, being connected is very, very important," Vigneault told CBC News is a recent interview. "Everything we can do to enable that for the benefit of the sailor and his or her family is very, very important."


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  • (Score: 2) by drussell on Sunday January 14 2018, @11:15AM (1 child)

    by drussell (2678) on Sunday January 14 2018, @11:15AM (#622154) Journal

    4G LTE ≠ Wi-Fi

    :facepalm:

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  • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday January 14 2018, @01:35PM

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Sunday January 14 2018, @01:35PM (#622172) Homepage Journal

    Wi-Fi is the digital that the Canadian Navy is getting (not smart).🇨🇦 4G LTE is the digital that Obama has saddled our great American Navy with.🇺🇸