A perennial problem for cycle tourists trying to blog from the road is internet access. A typical solution is to hope to find wifi maybe at a cafe during the day, or at a motel or campground at night. We have found that while these sources are great when you find them, they can't always be relied upon. And the thing is, we want people reading our blog to be able to rely on finding an entry every day. That is the way to build readership, the hit count, and Guestbook messages, and we live for readership, hit count, and messages when on the road.

So the next step, of course, is to have internet data over the cell network, at 2G or 3G speed. Naturally, this requires using a device that is cell capable, and in turn it means getting a SIM and a plan with some provider, to make it all happen.

Once you enter the world of communications providers and plans, you are in a never never land of tricky provisions and (usually) high costs. And if you think you are going to dance and skip from country to country ... watch out!

We thought we had the solution, when in a move that seemed too good to be true, T-Mobile announced that their data services would be available to account holders no matter which of 100 countries they wandered to. Maybe this was only announced to US customers, not sure. But in the T-Mobile store in Kirkland, Washington, this deal was emblazoned on a poster covering a full wall.

So the Grampies wandered in, last January, and were told that for a flat $30 per month they could have 500 GB of data on their tablet. (Not voice, just internet data and texts). So we signed up, for this would be the cheapest most convenient internet we would be able to muster for blogging in the US, France, Belgium, Germany, and Austria over the coming six months.

Glitch number one, you needed to be a US resident. So our daughter Laurie had to put in an appearance and buy the thing for her old parents.

We used the service fairly happily on the Southern Tier. But then two enigmatic texts arrived from T-Mobile. The first, received in Texas, welcomed us to Mexico. OK, we were skirting dangerously near the border. But the second warned us that we had used 40 mb or our 50 mb data allowance and threatened to cut us off. Say what? Isn't Mexico one of the 100 countries? Didn't they promise 500 GB anywhere in these countries??

Today I flounced back in to the T-Mobile office in Kirkland, took a photo of their wall, and sweetly inquired "What the Hell?!".

Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply

They innocently looked me in the eye and invented the rule that the deal on the wall only applied to smartphones, and not to my tablet. Now, in 2014 this is a bit weird, because portable SIM enabled touch screen devices are sold in 4 inch, 5 inch, 7 inch, 8 inch, 9 inch, and 10 inch versions. Some may be called phones, some phablets, and some tablets. Apparently my 7.7 inch device is not pleasing to T-Mobile. I cancelled the service and flounced back out.

While out, just for completeness, I walked 30 feet to AT&T. Why, I wanted to know, had my AT&T SIM equipped Nokia international phone not even tried to work, at any price, in Europe on our last trip? They innocently looked me in the eye and said (with barely concealed distain) "Oh, that thing has the AT&T Go Phone service", "International roaming is only for real customers with real accounts." I guess they need that real account to have a place to bill their inflated roaming charges to. I flounced out of there too!

So now what? There is always the solution, glibly put forward by those who must never have actually tried it, of buying a SIM in each country you visit. We actually did do that previously, in Germany anyway. The price was good, but you needed to be a German resident. We had to get Marius and his parents to step in, so now we live at their place, sort of. All we have to do is understand the communications company's plan and deal with it, in German, on their web site!

The other answer is in the dozens of companies offering SIM products that work in any country. The one we have dealt with is called One Sim, but there is also World Sim, Woolrich, and dozens of others. Of course, you have to understand and deal with the plans and deals that these companies throw at you. One of their favourite little tricks is to quote their data prices in US dollars per 100 kb. Good thing I took Intermediate Algebra in high school!

What it boils down to is that the price is fify to sixty cents per mb. I use 20-30 mb per day to do a minimal job of the blog (with photos) so that is $US 10-18 daily. Fortunately, One SIM has a package plan where you can buy 200 mb for $50, to be used over one month. So that is twenty-five cents per mb, for a daily cost of $5-7. You just have do keep buying the $50 packages, and of course desperately look for wifi wherever possible.

So that's the basic story, but for Grampies it's never that simple. We actually own three unlocked, international devices. There is the tablet with Bluetooth keyboard, the only thing for blogging. But then there is the Samsung S3 happily riding the handlebars with offline maps and gpx tracks, serving as the GPS. And finally the Nokia, stuffed with Big Bang Theory episodes and essential at bed time.

These devices had a look at our dealings with the communications companies, and the Nokia piped up "Hey, get me some kind of SIM and I can phone people for entertainment, in addition to Big Bang Theory". And the S3 piped up "Hey get me some kind of SIM and I can access Google Maps, and do a better job of finding campgrounds, and stuff (and by the way, ignore that Nokia, I will make the calls too).

I tried to explain all this to Dodie, spicing the story with extra facts, like how not all the devices use the same size SIMS, but that some SIMS are convertible. To her credit, she did not go ballistic, this time. I think we are sticking with just the one One SIM, though!

T-Mobile Epilog

I don't want to make your head hurt, like mine does, but the T-Mobile story is not over. I decided to walk into another T-Mobile office, just to make sure that the cruel hoax was real. They laughed off the thing about tablet vs. phone and established a new dichotomy. They said it all depended on whether I was a pre-paid customer or a post-paid customer (with exactly the same "Simple Choice" plan). They also said that the people in the first office were ignorant, because they were not a real T-Mobile office but only a company authorized to use the name and sell the products.

So I went away and phoned T-Mobile customer support, for a third opinion. They confirmed the pre and post paid thing. Based on that, I organized Laurie - dragging her to the first (closer) T-Mobile office, to change to post paid. The man there checked the account and stated that it was already post paid. He said the first guy I spoke to in that office was the manager, and therefore automatically ignorant. He also said the threatening text message about the 50 mb limit was spurious. Everything will be fine in Europe, he assured me.

So the moral of the (neverending) story is that the companies have made things so complicated that even their own employees are not sure what's what. It reinforces my disinclination to just stroll into a shop in each country and think I will set up internet access in a strange language, just like that.

As for T-Mobile, Paris will tell the tale!