When you are on the road, internet access can be a difficult thing. Your options are rather limited. You can visit the dreaded internet cafe, you can find wi-fi hotspots or you can use GPRS. All of these have both good and bad points and in this article, I hope to shed some light on these internet-on-the road choices.
Internet cafes are ubiquitous outside of the US, just about every small city has at least one internet cafe and usually more. Outside of tourist areas, the internet cafes are priced for the local market. It is very easy to go into a cafe to check your email. The price is right and you don’t need any special equipment except maybe a usb flash drive if you plan on saving any information. Yeah, it is very easy, but there are some very significant drawbacks.
The biggest drawback is the plethora of spyware, adware, and viruses on internet cafe computers. Anything you type into the computer can be intercepted by a third party so forget any banking. Casual surfing for news is ok, but email passwords and private information are no longer private once you visit an internet cafe. Heard of keyloggers? They log your every keystroke. Unsuspecting tourists have been victims of keylogging programs, do you want to join them?
Ok, so internet cafes aren’t the best choice? What about wi-fi? If you have mid range laptop, you probably have wi-fi already on your system. It is very easy to connect to a network and you never know what networks you can access. Hotels and guesthouses are beginning to offer wi-fi access to their guests for either a fee or for free. Wi-fi offers decent bandwidth at an affordable price, usually. A growing number of subscription hotspots charge a fees ranging from 2 to 8 times the price of an internet cafe connection. But, it is more secure of a connection. The positives of a wi-fi connection are decent speed and some security, but what are the drawbacks?
As with all things, there are negatives. First of all, because you are sending information over radio waves, anyone could intercept these transmissions and even if you are using encrypted communications, the host network could be compromised. While security is not generally an issue if you are using known networks, it can be if you connect to any available hotspots. Another drawback is that wi-fi hotspots can be few and far between, finding one is not always the easiest and it does limit your connection options.
A third option is to use GPRS. GPRS, General Packet Radio Service, is a method of transmitting data over a GSM mobile phone network. Not all GSM phones can be used as a GPRS modem but many can. What kind of speed can you expect? If you have a class 10 GPRS phone, you can expect connection speeds of 40k per second with downloads of 3 to 5k per second. Not broadband but only slightly worse than dialup and it is more than adequate to search the internet, get the latest news and send email, typical travel internet needs.
But what about availability? Generally, wherever there is a GSM signal, you can use GPRS. This means in even remote locations you can access your email. When I vacation, I take my laptop and Motorola L6 phone with me. The Motorola L6 is a quad band phone and is usable throughout the world. I know I can access the internet where I am. When arriving in a new country, I just buy a new sim card to put in the phone and I check with the provider on how to activate GPRS service. Prices vary for access and can range from less than a dollar an hour for access to $3 or $4 an hour to access. It is secure and you have the freedom to access wherever you are.
What is the best choice for internet on the road? I use all three methods. I always travel with my Motorola L6 for internet access in hotels and guesthouses. If by chance they have wi-fi then I use it, but if they don’t, I am still set for internet access. If I need to upload or download photos or large files, I usually visit an internet cafe since their speeds are usually better gprs speed. I know that having multiple access options when traveling has greatly improved my productivity.