PlanetEye

Monday, March 10th, 2008

Virtually here - Communication on the Road V.2

Brendan

The Global Nomad

Ok, so you have a Skype account, and are happily chatting away to mom and the boyfriend back in Kansas. Free. Not bad, eh? But what happens when you aren’t at a computer?

Cell phones are great tools but international roaming charges are notoriously expensive, phone cards are a hassle. Don’t even think of using a hotel phone.

The first solution is collecting SIM cards.

Step one: First, make sure you have a GSM phone.

Step two: Next, make sure it will work on at least one frequency used in each place you are travelling. It’s easy to check—here is one listing:

http://www.simoncells.com/scripts/gsmzone.asp

Tri-band and quad band phones are now inexpensive enough that this shouldn’t be an issue.

Of course, one way to avoid the last two steps is to buy a phone once you arrive, which may depend on your language skill and patience; I find there’s usually someone who has an old phone they aren’t using anymore that is perfect for travelliing—you won’t cry if it gets destroyed.

Step three: Once you arrive, go to a cell provider and buy a local SIM card. Your new local phone number will be associated with the SIM, and if pay-as-you-go there should be a minimum of paperwork. Presto, you have a local cell! Buy cards with credit at your local street kiosk and you are ready to go.

At this point there are lots of options, including

-forwarding your home or home cell to your new international number (if your plan or provider isn’t going to kill you with the long distance)

-forwarding your internet phone to your new local number. If you have an internet-based phone like a SkypeIn number, you can usually forward it to any number, meaning you only pay the equivalent of a Skype call—usually pennies a minute (plus your local cell usage)

-doing the same thing in reverse: when you want to call someone in another country, calling a local access number, and then having the call routed cheaply

The possibilities are endless. Happy talking!

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Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Virtually Home – Communication on the Road V.1

Brendan

The Global Nomad

Once upon a time, communication while travelling went something like “oh, yes indeed we would being happy to place a call for you! Please to eating dinner first…” and someone would come find you once the operator got through half an hour later.

Then came GSM roaming. And it was good. But expensive. Text messaging was a great, but limited option.

Then, as the internet spread and web-based email became common, we wondered how we ever made do without it, not to mention online chatting with the likes of Messenger.

Today things have continued to evolve to the point where the Internet is replacing traditional phone service. All of this is manna to the ears of travellers, especially those of us trying to ‘work’ remotely as much as possible.

Today there are lots of options—and they change every day—but here are some tools I find most useful for staying in touch on the road:

Skype – Essentially an internet phone tool, Skype has been around for some time. However, it’s only in recent years that internet speeds have gotten fast enough (and Skype technology better) that your average 3rd world internet café can still deliver decent call quality.

Today Skype can do a whole lot more then just make phone calls between computers—you can call any phone in the world for rates like 3 cents a minute. Once the small program is installed, calls between Skype accounts are free. Yesterday I had a conference call between myself here in Brazil, my brother in Taiwan, and my father in Canada, for about an hour, for free. Quality was about as good as an average cell phone.

If you aren’t travelling with a laptop and you don’t want to rely on cafes having headsets, you can get a small USB phone for about 20 bucks. Here are some ideas of what’s available:
 http://www.i-voip.co.uk/

Note: as VoIP internet-based phones for your home are becoming common (if you don’t know your IP from your VIP, read this primer: http://voip.about.com/od/voipbasics/a/whatisvoip.htm), you may already have one and might like to “take it with you.” I originally switched my home IP phone—which was tied to a gateway (read: box too big to want to lug it around)—over to a software-based system so I could keep my number. But Skype’s experience showed in its quality and reliability and I eventually dumped it. Try for yourself.

Also important to note is that if you want an incoming phone number as well as just the ability to call out, things are slightly more complex. In my case at least, Skype doesn’t have numbers in every country; Canada is notably absent. There are solutions to everything, though.

If you want more info feel free to write me at globalnomad@planeteye.com and if there is interest I can post more on this topic.

To be continued….with more tech tools to come

http://www.skype.com/

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