I think most of these crew SIM cards are roaming products, allowing seafarers to keep in touch when they are in ports. As far as I know none of them give special rates on the specialist onboard GSM stations which are always exorbitantly expensive. These systems are basically designed to suck out as much extra revenue from the passengers as is humanely possible. The same goes for networks that are installed on aircraft. Think about it, unlike ordinary terrestrial mobile networks, these nanocell or picocell solutions have a very tiny market to capitalise on and are quite expensive to install and maintain. AT the end of the day, the cruise ship operator always needs to be guaranteed a decent income from anyone who still decides to use it. Many do so out of ignorance as they do not really understanding the costs involved. (Hardly anything is ever published about what the costs are).
Almost 10 years ago these mini-mobile solutions were projected as major growth markets but the reality is that they do not see much use and several operators have even started pulling out the infrastructure. This is especially true on aircraft. I remember flying on a Ryanair flight almost 8 years ago where I had a mobile phone signal and they even installed information lights in the cabin saying GSM-ON. However, they never got beyond the trial stage as nobody bothered using the system as it was so overpriced.
Maybe on cruise ships they still maintain some tiny market, as wealthy passengers do not mind the cost (or are to naiive to understand the charges or perhaps never really see a phone bill).
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