On Monday 03 December 2007, Grant wrote: > > In Europe GSM is synonymous with cell phone (as far as I know analogue > > cell phone networks are no longer available to retail customers). You > > can buy Pay-As-You-Go SIM cards for less than $20 dollars equivalent. If > > you want a new phone with that, you may have to pay a bit more, but not > > much. I wouldn't be surprised if these days you can get a phone for > > 'free' as long as you buy say, $50 equivalent of Pay-As-You-Go minutes. > > As long as your phone is not locked by the provider (or you are prepared > > to unlock it yourself) it will work with any provider's SIM card. Also > > in Europe there are many ISP dial-up numbers, which will just cost you > > the price of a local call. These in the UK start with 0845- and for > > some/many of these you do not have to register as a user. Google for > > 'anonymous free dial up number UK' and you'll get a long list of 0845- > > numbers with username & passwds. You can use your PAYG phone and SIM > > card to ring any of these numbers. I have not found yet any dial up > > numbers which are barred by cell phone providers in the UK or in Europe > > (at least Switzerland, France, Germany, Norway, Spain and Greece), but > > YMMV. To avoid paying international call rates between different > > countries in Europe it would make sense to search and find ISP dial up > > numbers for each country that you intend to visit. > > Sounds pretty good. Is this a connection in the neighborhood of > 14.4k? Will it will work anywhere a GSM signal is had?
My really old cell phone won't go as high as that. I am getting up to 1.6KBps download speeds. This is usually on a train, going under bridges and so on. > I searched for free dial up in the US and all I could find was Netzero > and Juno which are Windows only. Do you happen to know of a dial up > ISP that has numbers all over the world? I wouldn't mind paying for > something like that. Have look here: http://www.google.com/search?q=International+Internet+dial+up+account&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 > > All of the above deals with numbers which are dialed up using plain GSM > > (TDMA or 2G technology). That's sloooow but cheap if you only intend to > > stay on line for short periods of time (e.g. downloading a couple of > > plain text emails) since charging is structured around the period of time > > that you stay connected. For larger downloads you need more bandwidth > > which in (most/all? of) Europe means a GPRS connection (FDMA, or 2.5G) > > and charging structure: > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Packet_Radio_Service > > > > With this you can stay connected as long as you want - you only pay for > > the kb of data that you up/download. As always Google should be able to > > show you loads of deals that are available these days to choose between > > providers. PAYG top-up cards containing the necessary codes that register > > your SIM with the respective cell phone network are available widely from > > corner shops and kiosks. Any GSM cell phone sold today can access both > > GSM & GPRS services. > > I got this from a page about bringing a cell phone to Costa Rica: "If > you bring it, remember that you will have to see if it is on the ICE > list of approved phones, then you will need to pay someone to convert > it, then you will have no warranty in either country. Why bother" That means that Costa Rica is a bit complicated when it comes to GSM access, or do they expect you to buy one of their phones just for a few days in their country?! > I guess certain phones only work in certain countries? I thought a > GSM phone with a local SIM card would work anywhere there is a GSM > network. Actually, wikitravel.org says: "Prepaid Sim cards are not > available in Costa Rica." It seems to me that Costa Rica has some restrictive commercial practices (probably trying to block cheap imports/stolen phones from the States hitting the local trade?) > I was looking for a relatively easy way to get online in most places > around the world, but maybe GSM isn't it. I swore off WIFI hunting > after visiting the Greek island of Corfu, and from jiwire.com it looks > like there is still nothing there. Check this out though: > > http://www.geofone.net/bgan-sale.htm > > These are lightweight, plenty fast, USB, Bluetooth, ethernet, and the > page even mentions Linux. $20/day and $7.95/MB doesn't sound so bad. > How can I figure out how much data I send/receive right now during > minimal operation? Don't know how long you intend staying connected each day, or how much data you need to up/download, but $20 a day doesn't exactly hit me as a deal . . . That's well more than what I would expect to have to pay a month, even when I am on international roaming charges away from home. -- Regards, Mick
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