ariadnemyc
New member
I may be going to Spain this year from S Coast. Anybody got any good hints on best way to use mobile phone for (i) email (ii) internet without running up a big bill.
Mobile phones
- Thread starter ariadnemyc
- Start date
ccscott49
Active member
Buy a movistar card for your phone, they have a special internet portal for it, the costs are, 0.20 euro connection, 0,12 e per minute, 0800-2100, 0,06 e 2100-0800. its a good service. The card is cheap in the first place, and you get more free calls than the card costs!
marcost
New member
That card seems very interesting. Can you give more details where to buy and how to get on internet with a laptop?
Thanks
Marc B.
Thanks
Marc B.
ccscott49
Active member
You can buy the card at any shop with the Movistar advert outside, mainly newspaper shops or kiosks. You need a phone capable of conection to your computer, I use the nokia 6210, which has the modem built in. The phone comes with a disc, to load the neccessary software, you can either buy a cable, £35, or use infrared, if your computer has it, then you speak to movistar services, in english on your phoine and they will tell you the number to call and the user and passwords, its free, except for the phone costs. I will find out the number and user, passwrods for you and get back to you. Send me a personal message.
G
Guest
Guest
Forget the internet. The download speed of a mobile means that surfing the internet is seriously expensive. For that reason, do not use an internet based e mail like hotmail, but use an ISP type one (there are correct terms for this difference but I cant remember them) like virgin or freeserve.
Make sure that people sending you messages dont send photos or other large files, and its probably best to get yourself a new e mail address, give it only to those you want to hear from, to avoid downloading junk mail etc.
I couldnt get a prepay moviestar card that allowed e mail to a Spanish phone number, but this may have been the moviestar office I visited in Spain. Instead I used a moviestar prepay card back to my normal uk isp (and you'll need a different phone number from them - the 0845 shouldnt be used form abroad) and the cost wasnt at all bad.
Finally, to avoid the cost of logging on to check mail every day, get key contacts to send you a text message to tell you there is an urgent e mail.
And if you havent yet bought a laptop, think seriously about a Psion. Apart from being much cheaper, the e mail software is much better i m o than outlook, and allows you to select which e mails you download after looking at both originator and file size. Again it allows you to avoid junk mail.
Make sure that people sending you messages dont send photos or other large files, and its probably best to get yourself a new e mail address, give it only to those you want to hear from, to avoid downloading junk mail etc.
I couldnt get a prepay moviestar card that allowed e mail to a Spanish phone number, but this may have been the moviestar office I visited in Spain. Instead I used a moviestar prepay card back to my normal uk isp (and you'll need a different phone number from them - the 0845 shouldnt be used form abroad) and the cost wasnt at all bad.
Finally, to avoid the cost of logging on to check mail every day, get key contacts to send you a text message to tell you there is an urgent e mail.
And if you havent yet bought a laptop, think seriously about a Psion. Apart from being much cheaper, the e mail software is much better i m o than outlook, and allows you to select which e mails you download after looking at both originator and file size. Again it allows you to avoid junk mail.
poter
Active member
Re: Internet overseas
I thought that it was quite difficult to use a UK ISP and that is why you would use an internet based email service.
Having tried a mobile phone with the internet I can tell you that the service currently, is snails pace, and very expensive. Having sailed and visited Spain on a no of occasions I would use the local phone service or internet cafes ( most large ports have cafes ) with a Hotmail or AOL account, it is by far the cheapest option.
However if you have an emergency then just use your Mobile, as long as you have set up roaming with your mobile phone supplier.
If you want to purchase a laptop ( not a psion.... had one ...yuk) goto
http://www.europc.co.uk/cgi-bin/web.store they have some really good deals.
But after all is said and done what about a postcard?
After all one assumes you are going to relax not work???
Poter.
I thought that it was quite difficult to use a UK ISP and that is why you would use an internet based email service.
Having tried a mobile phone with the internet I can tell you that the service currently, is snails pace, and very expensive. Having sailed and visited Spain on a no of occasions I would use the local phone service or internet cafes ( most large ports have cafes ) with a Hotmail or AOL account, it is by far the cheapest option.
However if you have an emergency then just use your Mobile, as long as you have set up roaming with your mobile phone supplier.
If you want to purchase a laptop ( not a psion.... had one ...yuk) goto
http://www.europc.co.uk/cgi-bin/web.store they have some really good deals.
But after all is said and done what about a postcard?
After all one assumes you are going to relax not work???
Poter.
G
Guest
Guest
Re: Internet overseas
no - just as easy to use a uk isp as it is here in the uk. they give you another dial number, and you just input that to the software in the normal way.
the advantages of the psion are 1/ its cost 2/ better software saves on phone costs 3/ reliability - no rotating hard disc 4/ size and weight. 5/ no modem / cables 6/ unlike the palm things, it has its own keyboard
no - just as easy to use a uk isp as it is here in the uk. they give you another dial number, and you just input that to the software in the normal way.
the advantages of the psion are 1/ its cost 2/ better software saves on phone costs 3/ reliability - no rotating hard disc 4/ size and weight. 5/ no modem / cables 6/ unlike the palm things, it has its own keyboard
dk
Well-known member
Re: Internet overseas
Has anyone tried Orange - they claim 28kbps data speeds I believe. Does this work abroad?
BTW I have registered with Cellnet for their cheap international service. Costs £2.49 odd per month but cuts call costs by half. Paid for itself for the year on one Xmas trip to the French Antilles!
Has anyone tried Orange - they claim 28kbps data speeds I believe. Does this work abroad?
BTW I have registered with Cellnet for their cheap international service. Costs £2.49 odd per month but cuts call costs by half. Paid for itself for the year on one Xmas trip to the French Antilles!
helmsman
New member
I've been using a mobile and laptop for some years. Short of not using there doesn't seem a cheap way. Try to find a server on roaming who charges per sec. rather than per. min. Also post off your emails in a bunch rather than one by one. We advise correspondents we log on on two/three defined days per week. Try to find a friendly marina and use their pc to check for em. Internet cafes can be reasonable. The internet takes forever using mobiles.
ccscott49
Active member
Re: Internet overseas
I have vodafone, can I transfer to BT and get this service, it sounds a good deal.
I have vodafone, can I transfer to BT and get this service, it sounds a good deal.
StephenW
Member
Re: Internet overseas
As I understand it AOL has nodes throughout the world, but "areas" to which different charges relate (most of Europe is relatively cheap) depending on where you originally set up the account.
CompuServe has a similar set up for CompuServe 2000 and I believe similar zoned charges apply.
However the old CompuServe Classic (before CS2000) didn't apply charges as long as you were using a CompuServe node (i.e. not via another provider)
As I understand it AOL has nodes throughout the world, but "areas" to which different charges relate (most of Europe is relatively cheap) depending on where you originally set up the account.
CompuServe has a similar set up for CompuServe 2000 and I believe similar zoned charges apply.
However the old CompuServe Classic (before CS2000) didn't apply charges as long as you were using a CompuServe node (i.e. not via another provider)
dk
Well-known member
Re: Internet overseas
I don't see why not. I've checked my bill and it's £2.99/month. Not all charges are half - some are as much as 80% cheaper!
BTW, I pay for my year in advance with Cellnet - they don't advertise it, but this way you get it for £89.99pa - (ie £7.49/month as opposed to the advertised rate of £14.99/month. The service is called Net 100 and it give me 100 mins of free calls (any time, not just off peak) each month.
Good luck!
I don't see why not. I've checked my bill and it's £2.99/month. Not all charges are half - some are as much as 80% cheaper!
BTW, I pay for my year in advance with Cellnet - they don't advertise it, but this way you get it for £89.99pa - (ie £7.49/month as opposed to the advertised rate of £14.99/month. The service is called Net 100 and it give me 100 mins of free calls (any time, not just off peak) each month.
Good luck!
MedMan
New member
In the four years since we left the UK we have only spent one night out of range of a GSM aerial, a clear indication of the extent of the network. Users of One2One or Orange can also log on to GSM networks provided they have a dual-standard handset.
It is the high cost of incoming calls that imposes the greatest limitation on the use of a UK mobile phone whilst abroad as callers may not appreciate that one is paying to receive their call. One solution favoured by those who remain in one country for a protracted period of time is to buy a rechargeable card from a local company. Provided your phone has not been ‘locked’, (One2One and Orange lock their handsets, Cellnet do not, - I’m not sure about Vodafone) this can be inserted into your UK phone giving it a local number e.g. a Spanish number if the card was bought in Spain. If you only use the card in the country of origin, incoming calls will be paid for entirely by the caller. However, it should be remembered that he/she will now pay approximately twice as much as he/she did when you had a UK number!
We have opted for a different solution. We have a One2One GSM phone on board, but we have it permanently set to ‘Unconditional Divert’. This means that the phone never rings and we can leave it switched off most of the time. However, we make use of two other features of the GSM system, namely e-mail and the Short Message Service (SMS). We have a laptop computer on board which we can connect to the GSM phone using a PC card and a cable. After 3 years with CompuServe we now use AOL as our Internet Service Provider as they have local numbers throughout Europe that make logging-on much cheaper. Surfing the Web is not practical as the GSM link only provides a 9600 b.p.s. baud rate, but sending and receiving e-mail is both cheap and efficient. An average session during which we might both send and receive three e-mails costs around £1.50 provided the call is made off-peak. We log on twice a week making the system very cost-effective indeed.
One added advantage of e-mail is that the same message can be sent to any number of different recipients for no additional cost. We have made use of this by sending regular ‘Passage Reports’ to friends and family to keep them in touch with our progress
E-mail can be sent to recipients who have a fax number but no e-mail facility of their own. The format is as follows:
remote-printer.name_name@telephone number.iddd.tpc.int
where name_name can be anything you please and telephone number is the country code (without the access digits 00) and the telephone number as dialled for an international call, i.e. without the leading zero, and without gaps.
We have our own personal fax number with a company called eFax. An incoming fax is converted into a graphics file and sent to us as an attachment to an e-mail message. Details of this free service can be found on http://www.efax.com.
E-mail solves many of the problems of communication whilst away including, in particular, receiving information. To receive e-mails from friends and relatives whilst sitting at anchor in a remote bay is a real joy. However, unless one were to log on every night, it does not solve the problem of emergency communication. For this we make use of the Short Message Service.
Any messages sent to your phone whilst it is switched off are stored for up to 17 days. They are received within a few minutes next time the phone is switched on, wherever in the world you happen to be, provided it is in range of a GSM aerial and provided the local operator’s system includes the SMS service which most now do. Messages cost nothing to receive and, in the UK, only 12p to send. It is amazingly cheap for a messaging service that covers half the globe!
One of our children acts as a point of contact for us in the UK. If she receives an urgent message for us she sends us an SMS message either from her mobile phone or from her computer at home. We switch our phone on for 10 minutes a day during supper. If our daughter has sent us a message we receive it at that time and can take action accordingly. More importantly, if as is usually the case, there is no message, we know that there is no problem. To receive such reassurance every night at no cost is a great blessing.
The combination of e-mail and the SMS service solves almost, though not quite all of our problems over communication whilst cruising. For relatives without e-mail or fax we send letters and postcards. There are also times when only a chat will do. On these occasions we use public telephone boxes. In Spain, BT have a pre-paid system that enables one to telephone the UK from any public telephone for the equivalent of 22p per minute, day and night charged by the second. To set up the system dial 900 94 89 25 from any phone in Spain (it is a free call) with a credit card to hand.
In France, almost all public telephones are now operated by a smart card known as a ‘Télécarte’. If you buy a ‘Télécarte Grande’ (120 units for 97.5 FF) calls to the UK during off-peak hours cost the equivalent of 23p per minute. Télécartes can be bought from any ‘Tabac’ (tobacconist shop).
Hope this helps
David
It is the high cost of incoming calls that imposes the greatest limitation on the use of a UK mobile phone whilst abroad as callers may not appreciate that one is paying to receive their call. One solution favoured by those who remain in one country for a protracted period of time is to buy a rechargeable card from a local company. Provided your phone has not been ‘locked’, (One2One and Orange lock their handsets, Cellnet do not, - I’m not sure about Vodafone) this can be inserted into your UK phone giving it a local number e.g. a Spanish number if the card was bought in Spain. If you only use the card in the country of origin, incoming calls will be paid for entirely by the caller. However, it should be remembered that he/she will now pay approximately twice as much as he/she did when you had a UK number!
We have opted for a different solution. We have a One2One GSM phone on board, but we have it permanently set to ‘Unconditional Divert’. This means that the phone never rings and we can leave it switched off most of the time. However, we make use of two other features of the GSM system, namely e-mail and the Short Message Service (SMS). We have a laptop computer on board which we can connect to the GSM phone using a PC card and a cable. After 3 years with CompuServe we now use AOL as our Internet Service Provider as they have local numbers throughout Europe that make logging-on much cheaper. Surfing the Web is not practical as the GSM link only provides a 9600 b.p.s. baud rate, but sending and receiving e-mail is both cheap and efficient. An average session during which we might both send and receive three e-mails costs around £1.50 provided the call is made off-peak. We log on twice a week making the system very cost-effective indeed.
One added advantage of e-mail is that the same message can be sent to any number of different recipients for no additional cost. We have made use of this by sending regular ‘Passage Reports’ to friends and family to keep them in touch with our progress
E-mail can be sent to recipients who have a fax number but no e-mail facility of their own. The format is as follows:
remote-printer.name_name@telephone number.iddd.tpc.int
where name_name can be anything you please and telephone number is the country code (without the access digits 00) and the telephone number as dialled for an international call, i.e. without the leading zero, and without gaps.
We have our own personal fax number with a company called eFax. An incoming fax is converted into a graphics file and sent to us as an attachment to an e-mail message. Details of this free service can be found on http://www.efax.com.
E-mail solves many of the problems of communication whilst away including, in particular, receiving information. To receive e-mails from friends and relatives whilst sitting at anchor in a remote bay is a real joy. However, unless one were to log on every night, it does not solve the problem of emergency communication. For this we make use of the Short Message Service.
Any messages sent to your phone whilst it is switched off are stored for up to 17 days. They are received within a few minutes next time the phone is switched on, wherever in the world you happen to be, provided it is in range of a GSM aerial and provided the local operator’s system includes the SMS service which most now do. Messages cost nothing to receive and, in the UK, only 12p to send. It is amazingly cheap for a messaging service that covers half the globe!
One of our children acts as a point of contact for us in the UK. If she receives an urgent message for us she sends us an SMS message either from her mobile phone or from her computer at home. We switch our phone on for 10 minutes a day during supper. If our daughter has sent us a message we receive it at that time and can take action accordingly. More importantly, if as is usually the case, there is no message, we know that there is no problem. To receive such reassurance every night at no cost is a great blessing.
The combination of e-mail and the SMS service solves almost, though not quite all of our problems over communication whilst cruising. For relatives without e-mail or fax we send letters and postcards. There are also times when only a chat will do. On these occasions we use public telephone boxes. In Spain, BT have a pre-paid system that enables one to telephone the UK from any public telephone for the equivalent of 22p per minute, day and night charged by the second. To set up the system dial 900 94 89 25 from any phone in Spain (it is a free call) with a credit card to hand.
In France, almost all public telephones are now operated by a smart card known as a ‘Télécarte’. If you buy a ‘Télécarte Grande’ (120 units for 97.5 FF) calls to the UK during off-peak hours cost the equivalent of 23p per minute. Télécartes can be bought from any ‘Tabac’ (tobacconist shop).
Hope this helps
David
david_bagshaw
Well-known member
Vodafone monthly paid phones are not locked, the pre pay are.
Have used all the methods as suggested and they are fine, particularly e fax
In NL , KPN do not allow data calls on their pre pay , so I still have to use Voda and dial a local isp 12.move, which has been taken over so I hope it still works next season.
I use to use the
remote-printer.name_name@telephone number.iddd.tpc.int
method, thanks for pointing out it still works, as it wouldnt for me last year.
David
www.yachtman.co.uk
Have used all the methods as suggested and they are fine, particularly e fax
In NL , KPN do not allow data calls on their pre pay , so I still have to use Voda and dial a local isp 12.move, which has been taken over so I hope it still works next season.
I use to use the
remote-printer.name_name@telephone number.iddd.tpc.int
method, thanks for pointing out it still works, as it wouldnt for me last year.
David
www.yachtman.co.uk
MedMan
New member
Yes, the remote printer scheme did go through a blip last year and would not work for several months but it is up and running again now.
David
David