Here's an article from the Navy Times that might be of interest:
Limited online access stresses sailors at sea (Apr 2012)
Quote:
ABOARD THE CARRIER ENTERPRISE — In a room about half the size of a tennis court, half a dozen sailors are waiting for a seat to open up at one of 30 computers lining the bulkheads.
With a library next door, it's like a high school media center, only the patrons are a few years older than the typical student and wearing Navy working uniforms.
This particular day wasn't that busy — sailors waited a few minutes or so to log on and check their email, write home, look at their bank accounts, catch up on the news and scan Facebook.
"The biggest thing is social networks and email," said Aviation Boatswain's Mate 2nd Class (SW) Jose Santiago, who was running the media center that day in January.
While sailors have a list of things they need to do online, they have one challenge to negotiate: They're working on the equivalent of a dial-up network. Carriers and other ships have plenty of broadband access, but a large portion of it is devoted to the ship's war-fighting capability. What's left is used by the 5,000 sailors onboard for their personal business and recreation, and given the number of users online at any moment, it's a particularly slow connection.
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