Painful Bytes On The Road
I'm writing this in my Aunt Gertrude's house in the wilderness that is British suburbia. Amid the prewar furniture and knitted bedspreads is a sprawl of SIM cards, packaging, user manuals, cellphones and cables -- the latest front in my battle to get connected far from home without spending a fortune.
Getting connected to the Web in a big city is relatively easy. Eateries with cheap or free WiFi connections abound. Cities like Singapore aim to cloak themselves in ubiquitous, free WiFi in the next few years. Until then, and in between hot spots, small USB modems that connect at third-generation speeds fill the gap. But go to smaller or more remote places and you can face the same problem as with cellphone roaming: It's expensive.
So what to do? Well, the most obvious haven is a WiFi hot spot. WiFi has exploded. Three years ago I wandered around a Northampton suburb with my laptop looking for networks and found only hostile looks. Now I'm getting a dozen WiFi signals without leaving my bedroom. The world is awash in WiFi.
But all are password-protected. (I repeated the experiment in three countries with the same results.) This is a good thing. When WiFi arrived most networks were open by default, leaving owners vulnerable to strangers like me piggybacking on their connection, or to bad people hacking into their hard drives to send spam or cyber-attack Estonia.
The other problem with WiFi is that it's still regarded as a commercial service in its own right. I was shocked to find the only WiFi available in Heathrow's business-class lounges costs a princely $15 for a couple of hours. A nearby hotel also charges. I would have thought by now a decent -- free -- Internet connection would be part of the deal for business travelers and hotel guests.
Still, there are other options. WiFi roaming services, which allow you to access local networks using your account back home, are now quite common in airports and elsewhere. Boingo and iPass are two of the best known, but unless you're a regular traveler they're not cheap. Boingo's global service, for example, costs $10 a day , unless you sign up for the $40 monthly plan.
There are cheaper ways to get into these networks, however. If you have a broadband Internet account you may already have access; Singapore's SingNet, for example, gives its subscribers a free iPass account (tinyurl.com/25zn5x) with login charges of about $3 a month and 30 cents a minute usage. Still, that can run into money for a heavy user or slow surfer.
Better is Singapore's StarHub, which offers subscribers a free WiFi roaming package to its mobile, broadband or even TV services. This is provided by the Wireless Broadband Alliance, a grouping of mobile carriers. I noticed StarHub on several WiFi sign-in pages on recent travels. Information on the package wasn't easy to find on StarHub's Web site, though.
Another option is FON (fon.com), whose members agree to share their WiFi in return for access to other members' WiFi. Started in Europe, it's won converts around the world: There's one a couple of streets away from my Singapore home, and one a couple of kilometers south of Aunt Gertrude's. AnchorFree (www.anchorfree.com) is another newly launched service that offers free WiFi access, this one subsidized by ads.
But none of this helps much when you're not in the center of town, which brings me back to the SIM cards on the bedspread. I've gotten used to these USB modems that slot into my laptop and allow 3.5G connections on a bus. But while they're cheap enough in the service provider's locale, roaming gets expensive (from $2 to $10 per megabyte). You might find special deals depending on where you're going, and things may change in Asia after the Conexus Mobile Alliance (www.conexusmobile.com) of seven Asian operators launches its flat-rate tariff for data roaming next year. This, I believe, is the future -- at least until the whole planet is one big hot spot.
In the meantime I feel it should be possible to use prepaid SIM cards -- designed primarily for voice as connections -- for data. Vodafone indeed offers a service for a HSDPA modem that costs about $20 per 24 hours of more or less unlimited usage. Not cheap, but at least it's portable and would work even in the 'burbs -- but you need a U.K. address and bank account to sign up.
So I started digging around the terms and conditions of voice prepaid cards. Vodafone, it turns out, offers prepaid cellphone users up to 15 megabytes of data traffic a day for about $2. (More than that costs about $4 per megabyte.)
That might be reasonable for people accessing the Web and email on their cellphone, but for someone using a laptop, I found to my cost, 15 megabytes doesn't go far. Google by cellphone is a mini version of the search engine's homepage, as is its email service, Gmail. Same if you download Google's special application for Symbian-based mobile phones. It's just the basics -- none of the flashy graphics, or other bits that run alongside your usual Web page. Other applications, like Seven Networks' new Symbian-based email software, further reduce traffic by compressing the data.
But while I check my email from my cellphone just like any BlackBerry user, I don't think this replaces a session on the laptop, where you're able to read more than a few lines at a time, reread any prior discussion of the subject and double check your facts via the Web before crafting a reply.
For me, the mobile Internet is when I can hook up my laptop to the net on the road. So I plugged my 3.5G phone into my laptop, fiddled with some settings and hey Presto! I was online. But however much I tried -- suspending all background activities like email checking, Skype, automatic software and antivirus updates, blocking browser images etc. -- the data transfer clock ticked through those 15 megabytes within minutes. Vodafone gave me three SIM cards as a 'family offer,' so I bought credit on each and tried switching between them to pump my daily allowance up to 45 megabytes. To no avail; I'd barely started surfing before I hit the 15 megabyte limit on all three. The gap between WiFi hot spot and expensive roaming data, it seems, still needs to be plugged.
My advice? Do your homework before a trip, and sign up for -- and configure on your laptop -- as many of these services as you can. Or fall back on the tried and trusted dial-up. It's slow, and ties up the phone line, but it works. Me? I'm getting in the car and heading south.
当我在写这篇专栏时，正待在克鲁格婶婶地处英国荒郊野外的家里。这间还摆放着二战前的家具和用着编织床单的老屋子一时间便摆满了我的SIM卡、行李、用户手册、手机和网线，这里成了我在异乡省钱上网的最新根据地。
在大城市上网相对而言该比较容易。安装了低收费或是免费WiFi登录点的食品店到处都是。新加坡甚至计划未来几年建成能覆盖整座城市的免费WiFi网络。在此之前，用连接第三代互联网的小型USB调制解调器也可以在WiFi登录点覆盖不到的地方无线上网。但要想在偏远的小城镇上网，恐怕收费会与手机漫游一样高得可怕。
那该如何是好？最好的办法就是找个WiFi登录点能覆盖的地方。现在WiFi已经到处都是。如果3年前我带着笔记本电脑想在北安普敦的的乡间找个能上网的地方，那肯定会吃闭门羹。如今我不用出门就能感应到十几个WiFi登录点的信号。彷佛全世界都淹没在WiFi网络中。
不过这些登录点都带有密码（我在3个国家的测试结果都一样）。其实这是件好事。当WiFi刚开始出现时其网络大多是开放的，这就为像我这样想"蹭网"的人打开了方便之门，也使得一些坏人得以轻而易举地侵入WiFi上网用户的电脑，在那里发送垃圾邮件或发起网络攻击。
另一个问题在于现在WiFi仍然被视为一项商业服务。如果你在伦敦希思罗机场，会惊奇地发现唯一可用的WiFi登录点位于商务舱乘客的休息室内，短短两小时的上网费竟然要15美元。机场附近的一家宾馆同样也对上网收费。我原来一直以为，免费上网该是商务舱乘客和宾馆房客享受的一项服务。
不过别的办法总还是有的。比如使用WiFi漫游服务的用户可以在异地上网，并将费用记在家中的帐上。现在这项服务在机场和其他地方相当普及。Boingo和iPass是这项业务的佼佼者，但除非用户要经常外出旅行，否则价钱并不便宜。例如Boingo的全球服务每天收费要10美元，用户也可以缴纳40美元包月。
还有更便宜的办法登录这些网络。如果你有宽频上网帐户，可能就已经具备条件了。新加坡的SingNet为每位用户提供一个免费的iPass帐户(tinyurl.com/25zn5x)，每个月的登录费是3美元，每分钟上网费是30美分。不过对于经常上网或是喜欢在网上闲逛的人来说还是会花上不少钱。
新加坡Starhub Ltd.的情况要好些，该公司的手机、宽频甚至电视用户都可免费享受WiFi漫游服务。这一服务是由手机运营商组织──无线宽频联盟(Wireless Broadband Alliance)提供的。我最近旅行时在好几个WiFi登录界面上都看到StarHub的提示。不过在该公司自己的网站上却不容易找到这项服务的信息。
另外你还可以选择用FON网络(fon.com)。其成员要相互分享各自的WiFi资源。FON网络最早在欧洲发起，现已覆盖全球。与我新加坡的家隔着几条街便有一个登录点，克鲁格婶婶家南边几公里也有一个登录点。AnchorFree(www.anchorfree.com)是最近才面市的一项免费WiFi服务，其运营经费来自广告。
但如果不是身在某个城市的中心区，这些服务都起不到太大作用，我最后还是得求助于扔在床上的那堆SIM卡。我已经习惯于将USB调制解调器接在笔记本电脑上，然后在公交车上登录3.5G网络。虽然这种服务在本地相当便宜，但漫游时却很贵（每兆流量的收费从2美元到10美元不等）。有时候可能会有一些特价服务，但要看是在什么地方。在组成Conexus Mobile Alliance的7家亚洲电信运营商明年推出统一费率的数据漫游服务后，亚洲地区可能将迎来曙光。我相信，这是未来的发展趋势，至少在WiFi登录点能覆盖全球之前是如此。
与此同时，我觉得使用预付费的SIM卡来上网该是可行的，尽管其设计初衷是用于手机通话。实际上沃达丰空中通讯公司(Vodafone Group PLC)就有一项配合HSDPA调制解调器的服务，每24小时的收费是20美元，而且使用基本不受限制。虽然收费并不便宜，但至少便于携带并且在乡下也能使用。但这项服务需要提供一个在英国的住址，并且要在银行开户才能登录。
于是我开始研究起各种预付费SIM卡的协议条款，并发现沃达丰向预付费手机用户提供每天最多15兆流量的数据服务，费用大约为每天2美元（超过的流量每兆约收费4美元）。
对仅限于登录网页和收发电邮的用户，这个流量额度或许是合理的。但像我这样用笔记本上网的人，15兆的流量并不够用。谷歌(Google Inc.)对手机版本的搜索页面以及电邮系统"Gmail"进行了简化处理。如果你下载谷歌基于Symbian操作系统而专门开发的应用软件也会有相同效果。其 素的页面不带有正常访问时所见的那些动画图片或是其他占用流量的内容。其他的应用软件，例如Seven Networks基于Symbian操作系统新出的电邮软件能通过压缩数据使得流量进一步"瘦身"。
虽然我像所有BlackBerry用户一样会用手机收发电邮，但我不认为它能取代电脑的位置。用电脑不但能一次阅读更多内容，还能查阅此前关于同一主题的讨论，并在回信前通过网页对事实进行核实。
只有可接驳笔记本电脑时我才会选择用手机上网。于是我将3.5G手机与笔记本接在一起，在做好一些设置后就可以上路了。虽然网是可以上了，但无论我想尽任何办法，比如暂停运行邮件查验、网络电话、自动运行软件和病毒库更新等后台程序，并屏蔽所有浏览器图片，15兆的流量还是在短短几分钟内消耗殆尽。沃达丰给了我3张"家庭装"SIM卡，于是我给每张卡都充了值，想靠轮换使用的方式来充分利用每天45兆的总流量。但这个办法效果也不大，在我耗尽每张卡的15兆流量前，几乎看不了多少网页。看起来，WiFi上网的异地漫游费过高问题仍有待解决。
要说我的建议，那就是在离家前先做好功课，尽可能多地开通这些服务，并设置好笔记本电脑的系统。或者干脆重新使用可靠的拨号上网。虽然速度慢，而且要电话线，但总算是能用。至于我，正坐上汽车踏上南下的旅途。
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I'm writing this in my Aunt Gertrude's house in the wilderness that is British suburbia. Amid the prewar furniture and knitted bedspreads is a sprawl of SIM cards, packaging, user manuals, cellphones and cables -- the latest front in my battle to get connected far from home without spending a fortune.
Getting connected to the Web in a big city is relatively easy. Eateries with cheap or free WiFi connections abound. Cities like Singapore aim to cloak themselves in ubiquitous, free WiFi in the next few years. Until then, and in between hot spots, small USB modems that connect at third-generation speeds fill the gap. But go to smaller or more remote places and you can face the same problem as with cellphone roaming: It's expensive.
So what to do? Well, the most obvious haven is a WiFi hot spot. WiFi has exploded. Three years ago I wandered around a Northampton suburb with my laptop looking for networks and found only hostile looks. Now I'm getting a dozen WiFi signals without leaving my bedroom. The world is awash in WiFi.
But all are password-protected. (I repeated the experiment in three countries with the same results.) This is a good thing. When WiFi arrived most networks were open by default, leaving owners vulnerable to strangers like me piggybacking on their connection, or to bad people hacking into their hard drives to send spam or cyber-attack Estonia.
The other problem with WiFi is that it's still regarded as a commercial service in its own right. I was shocked to find the only WiFi available in Heathrow's business-class lounges costs a princely $15 for a couple of hours. A nearby hotel also charges. I would have thought by now a decent -- free -- Internet connection would be part of the deal for business travelers and hotel guests.
Still, there are other options. WiFi roaming services, which allow you to access local networks using your account back home, are now quite common in airports and elsewhere. Boingo and iPass are two of the best known, but unless you're a regular traveler they're not cheap. Boingo's global service, for example, costs $10 a day , unless you sign up for the $40 monthly plan.
There are cheaper ways to get into these networks, however. If you have a broadband Internet account you may already have access; Singapore's SingNet, for example, gives its subscribers a free iPass account (tinyurl.com/25zn5x) with login charges of about $3 a month and 30 cents a minute usage. Still, that can run into money for a heavy user or slow surfer.
Better is Singapore's StarHub, which offers subscribers a free WiFi roaming package to its mobile, broadband or even TV services. This is provided by the Wireless Broadband Alliance, a grouping of mobile carriers. I noticed StarHub on several WiFi sign-in pages on recent travels. Information on the package wasn't easy to find on StarHub's Web site, though.
Another option is FON (fon.com), whose members agree to share their WiFi in return for access to other members' WiFi. Started in Europe, it's won converts around the world: There's one a couple of streets away from my Singapore home, and one a couple of kilometers south of Aunt Gertrude's. AnchorFree (www.anchorfree.com) is another newly launched service that offers free WiFi access, this one subsidized by ads.
But none of this helps much when you're not in the center of town, which brings me back to the SIM cards on the bedspread. I've gotten used to these USB modems that slot into my laptop and allow 3.5G connections on a bus. But while they're cheap enough in the service provider's locale, roaming gets expensive (from $2 to $10 per megabyte). You might find special deals depending on where you're going, and things may change in Asia after the Conexus Mobile Alliance (www.conexusmobile.com) of seven Asian operators launches its flat-rate tariff for data roaming next year. This, I believe, is the future -- at least until the whole planet is one big hot spot.
In the meantime I feel it should be possible to use prepaid SIM cards -- designed primarily for voice as connections -- for data. Vodafone indeed offers a service for a HSDPA modem that costs about $20 per 24 hours of more or less unlimited usage. Not cheap, but at least it's portable and would work even in the 'burbs -- but you need a U.K. address and bank account to sign up.
So I started digging around the terms and conditions of voice prepaid cards. Vodafone, it turns out, offers prepaid cellphone users up to 15 megabytes of data traffic a day for about $2. (More than that costs about $4 per megabyte.)
That might be reasonable for people accessing the Web and email on their cellphone, but for someone using a laptop, I found to my cost, 15 megabytes doesn't go far. Google by cellphone is a mini version of the search engine's homepage, as is its email service, Gmail. Same if you download Google's special application for Symbian-based mobile phones. It's just the basics -- none of the flashy graphics, or other bits that run alongside your usual Web page. Other applications, like Seven Networks' new Symbian-based email software, further reduce traffic by compressing the data.
But while I check my email from my cellphone just like any BlackBerry user, I don't think this replaces a session on the laptop, where you're able to read more than a few lines at a time, reread any prior discussion of the subject and double check your facts via the Web before crafting a reply.
For me, the mobile Internet is when I can hook up my laptop to the net on the road. So I plugged my 3.5G phone into my laptop, fiddled with some settings and hey Presto! I was online. But however much I tried -- suspending all background activities like email checking, Skype, automatic software and antivirus updates, blocking browser images etc. -- the data transfer clock ticked through those 15 megabytes within minutes. Vodafone gave me three SIM cards as a 'family offer,' so I bought credit on each and tried switching between them to pump my daily allowance up to 45 megabytes. To no avail; I'd barely started surfing before I hit the 15 megabyte limit on all three. The gap between WiFi hot spot and expensive roaming data, it seems, still needs to be plugged.
My advice? Do your homework before a trip, and sign up for -- and configure on your laptop -- as many of these services as you can. Or fall back on the tried and trusted dial-up. It's slow, and ties up the phone line, but it works. Me? I'm getting in the car and heading south.
当我在写这篇专栏时，正待在克鲁格婶婶地处英国荒郊野外的家里。这间还摆放着二战前的家具和用着编织床单的老屋子一时间便摆满了我的SIM卡、行李、用户手册、手机和网线，这里成了我在异乡省钱上网的最新根据地。
在大城市上网相对而言该比较容易。安装了低收费或是免费WiFi登录点的食品店到处都是。新加坡甚至计划未来几年建成能覆盖整座城市的免费WiFi网络。在此之前，用连接第三代互联网的小型USB调制解调器也可以在WiFi登录点覆盖不到的地方无线上网。但要想在偏远的小城镇上网，恐怕收费会与手机漫游一样高得可怕。
那该如何是好？最好的办法就是找个WiFi登录点能覆盖的地方。现在WiFi已经到处都是。如果3年前我带着笔记本电脑想在北安普敦的的乡间找个能上网的地方，那肯定会吃闭门羹。如今我不用出门就能感应到十几个WiFi登录点的信号。彷佛全世界都淹没在WiFi网络中。
不过这些登录点都带有密码（我在3个国家的测试结果都一样）。其实这是件好事。当WiFi刚开始出现时其网络大多是开放的，这就为像我这样想"蹭网"的人打开了方便之门，也使得一些坏人得以轻而易举地侵入WiFi上网用户的电脑，在那里发送垃圾邮件或发起网络攻击。
另一个问题在于现在WiFi仍然被视为一项商业服务。如果你在伦敦希思罗机场，会惊奇地发现唯一可用的WiFi登录点位于商务舱乘客的休息室内，短短两小时的上网费竟然要15美元。机场附近的一家宾馆同样也对上网收费。我原来一直以为，免费上网该是商务舱乘客和宾馆房客享受的一项服务。
不过别的办法总还是有的。比如使用WiFi漫游服务的用户可以在异地上网，并将费用记在家中的帐上。现在这项服务在机场和其他地方相当普及。Boingo和iPass是这项业务的佼佼者，但除非用户要经常外出旅行，否则价钱并不便宜。例如Boingo的全球服务每天收费要10美元，用户也可以缴纳40美元包月。
还有更便宜的办法登录这些网络。如果你有宽频上网帐户，可能就已经具备条件了。新加坡的SingNet为每位用户提供一个免费的iPass帐户(tinyurl.com/25zn5x)，每个月的登录费是3美元，每分钟上网费是30美分。不过对于经常上网或是喜欢在网上闲逛的人来说还是会花上不少钱。
新加坡Starhub Ltd.的情况要好些，该公司的手机、宽频甚至电视用户都可免费享受WiFi漫游服务。这一服务是由手机运营商组织──无线宽频联盟(Wireless Broadband Alliance)提供的。我最近旅行时在好几个WiFi登录界面上都看到StarHub的提示。不过在该公司自己的网站上却不容易找到这项服务的信息。
另外你还可以选择用FON网络(fon.com)。其成员要相互分享各自的WiFi资源。FON网络最早在欧洲发起，现已覆盖全球。与我新加坡的家隔着几条街便有一个登录点，克鲁格婶婶家南边几公里也有一个登录点。AnchorFree(www.anchorfree.com)是最近才面市的一项免费WiFi服务，其运营经费来自广告。
但如果不是身在某个城市的中心区，这些服务都起不到太大作用，我最后还是得求助于扔在床上的那堆SIM卡。我已经习惯于将USB调制解调器接在笔记本电脑上，然后在公交车上登录3.5G网络。虽然这种服务在本地相当便宜，但漫游时却很贵（每兆流量的收费从2美元到10美元不等）。有时候可能会有一些特价服务，但要看是在什么地方。在组成Conexus Mobile Alliance的7家亚洲电信运营商明年推出统一费率的数据漫游服务后，亚洲地区可能将迎来曙光。我相信，这是未来的发展趋势，至少在WiFi登录点能覆盖全球之前是如此。
与此同时，我觉得使用预付费的SIM卡来上网该是可行的，尽管其设计初衷是用于手机通话。实际上沃达丰空中通讯公司(Vodafone Group PLC)就有一项配合HSDPA调制解调器的服务，每24小时的收费是20美元，而且使用基本不受限制。虽然收费并不便宜，但至少便于携带并且在乡下也能使用。但这项服务需要提供一个在英国的住址，并且要在银行开户才能登录。
于是我开始研究起各种预付费SIM卡的协议条款，并发现沃达丰向预付费手机用户提供每天最多15兆流量的数据服务，费用大约为每天2美元（超过的流量每兆约收费4美元）。
对仅限于登录网页和收发电邮的用户，这个流量额度或许是合理的。但像我这样用笔记本上网的人，15兆的流量并不够用。谷歌(Google Inc.)对手机版本的搜索页面以及电邮系统"Gmail"进行了简化处理。如果你下载谷歌基于Symbian操作系统而专门开发的应用软件也会有相同效果。其 素的页面不带有正常访问时所见的那些动画图片或是其他占用流量的内容。其他的应用软件，例如Seven Networks基于Symbian操作系统新出的电邮软件能通过压缩数据使得流量进一步"瘦身"。
虽然我像所有BlackBerry用户一样会用手机收发电邮，但我不认为它能取代电脑的位置。用电脑不但能一次阅读更多内容，还能查阅此前关于同一主题的讨论，并在回信前通过网页对事实进行核实。
只有可接驳笔记本电脑时我才会选择用手机上网。于是我将3.5G手机与笔记本接在一起，在做好一些设置后就可以上路了。虽然网是可以上了，但无论我想尽任何办法，比如暂停运行邮件查验、网络电话、自动运行软件和病毒库更新等后台程序，并屏蔽所有浏览器图片，15兆的流量还是在短短几分钟内消耗殆尽。沃达丰给了我3张"家庭装"SIM卡，于是我给每张卡都充了值，想靠轮换使用的方式来充分利用每天45兆的总流量。但这个办法效果也不大，在我耗尽每张卡的15兆流量前，几乎看不了多少网页。看起来，WiFi上网的异地漫游费过高问题仍有待解决。
要说我的建议，那就是在离家前先做好功课，尽可能多地开通这些服务，并设置好笔记本电脑的系统。或者干脆重新使用可靠的拨号上网。虽然速度慢，而且要电话线，但总算是能用。至于我，正坐上汽车踏上南下的旅途。
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