Travel Technology - international roaming wireless broadband internet service

I apologize if this has been covered before, but could not find it using the search function.

I would like to find a wireless broadband internet service which will allow me to roam internationally. I will mainly use it in the US, but need to be able to crank it up overseas when I don't have other options and connect.

Verizon and Sprint/Nextel CSRs both told me that they cannot do that.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

Thanks, TJ

I just asked about this on prepaid gsm... Some countries offer UMTS which is fairly fast. EDGE and GPRS is fairly slow though - about par on dialup...

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1718

What do you want to use the broadband for? Browsing? File transfers? E-mail? Is this a want or a need? How many countries are you going to visit and how long will you have in each one?

In general, my advice is to buy local prepaid cards. Cingular and T-mobile can do what you want but you're talking about $15/mb. Quite a few countries offer prepaid solutions that are reasonable. Vodafone in Spain offers 1GB data for €60. Compared to 4MB roaming on T-mo? That's a no-brainer.

I use Ipass. This is an international roaming scheme for both wireless and dial-up (it started as a dial-up roaming scheme back in the 1990s). It comes free with my home broadband package, but can also be bought stand-alone for a small monthly subscription. Actual usage is charged on a pay-as-you-go basis and is added to my monthly broadband bill.

A worldwide list of Ipass resellers can be found here (http://www.ipass.com/partners/partners_resellerlocator.html)

heres another option with no monthly fees:

http://www.bamnet.com/

When there is no WiFi and I absolutely must have email access, I can use my T-Mobile RAZR as a wireless modem for my laptop throughout the world (except maybe Japan). The last time was sitting on the tarmac at MUC. Is that what you need, email access?

When there is no WiFi and I absolutely must have email access, I can use my T-Mobile RAZR as a wireless modem for my laptop throughout the world (except maybe Japan). The last time was sitting on the tarmac at MUC. Is that what you need, email access?


you may want to get a blackberry plan with unlimited international data plan
should come out to about $60-70/month

you may want to get a blackberry plan with unlimited international data plan
should come out to about $60-70/month

This is a hydra response. First, the guy from Verizon didn't know what he was talking about. Verizon offers an international wireless dataplan with a hybrid card that does EVDO in the US and UMTS in Europe. The plan gives you unlimited (using Verizon's horid definition of the term) in the US and 200 megs in Europe. If you exceed the limit in Europe, you get hit with a per minute plan.

Second, the Blackberry unlimited data plans that people were talking about do not include unlimited non-Blackberry data. You cannot pop your sim card into a GPRS/3g modem card and surf away. On Cingular, they will only activate general GPRS service on a Blackberry plan on special request and the customer service reps are told to make it clear that you pay by the megabyte.

I have the Cingular Blackberry plan and have been hit with per megabyte usage charges outside the US. If you have a true Blackberry (e.g. not a Blackberry Connect device) you can cheat on this a little if you have a Blackberry Enterprise Server connection and a little bit of technical prowess. A BES connection is essentially a VPN connection to your Blackberry Enterrprise Service through the RIM server in Ottawa. Cingular cannot really see what is in the stream and you can hijack the DUN and runs some other apps through it, including one that permits laptop tethering. Someone from Rogers in Canada told me at a party that the average Blackberry user goes through under 10 megs a month of data. If you pull down 20 megs, I doubt anyone will look at you, if you pull down 500 megs I think you could be looking a problem.

TMobile's plan give you a little WAP browsing for free.

In addition to iPass, look at Boingo. Boingo has hotspot roaming in many countries. On their unlimited plan, there are many included foreign hot spots. Even if you don't use them as your primary provider, they are handy as a roaming provider. They have good European airport coverage.

I have a PAYG account with both Boingo and i2Roam which is an iPass reseller. I paid the one off $50 for lifetime membership, which is basically just PAYG roaming. Between those two, I have good access to the BT, Swisscom, TMobile, and Vodafone networks. You also have roaming on the iPass network for Dubai, and the Netvigator network for Hong Kong. You have coverage in Heathrow, Schipol, Narita, Gatwick, Frankfurt, Dubai International (but there is a free net there), and Hong Kong International . You also have great train station coverage.

A lot of people, including myself, had signed up for the plan from Wind Telecom out of Italy that gave you 200 megs of roaming data for Euros 20 a month. That plan, however, was abruptly cancelled.


Stu

PS: Unless you are looking for a single statement for expense purposes, always check out the hotspot providers own rate for using their service. It is often cheaper than the consolidator's rate. For example, you can get a day's worth of wifi service at Schipol for Euros 10. Boingo charges US$ 0.18 a minute. I have a regular 6 hour layover at Schipol. The day pass makes a great deal more sense. (If you are Northwest Platinum or the Skyeteam equivalent with Lounge privileges at KLM, you can get two hours of free access from the machines at the KLM lounge).

Has anybody found anything better since Nov? I checked out Boingo and they are pretty good, but it seems that most German locations are premium locations at $.12 per minute or $7.20 per hour.

I need email and web access when I travel and I travel to Mexico, Germany, England, HKG etc.... so I need to cover a broad range of locations.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

WiFi connection in Germany are expensive, five euro per hour level.

In order to use my Sprint number overseas, I have a Sprint International Roaming SIM card and use it with a UMTS phone, which is essentially a HSDPA device. Sprint does support data but charge at few cents per KB level and differ from country to country.

I haven't tries it yet but I can either use a USB cable and a soft modem on the computer or get a HSDPA card and put the Sprint SIM in it. Here is an URL to Sprint International Roaming (http://www.nextel.com/en/services/worldwide/travelabroad_sprint.shtml). Click on the international coverage areas hyper link and select the country you are going to in the popup window. It shows you the voice and data charge rates.

Things have not gotten significantly better. There is a SIM from United Mobile called ICQ Mobile which has OK rates. ATT's iPhone plan offers you 50 megs in select countries and you can use the phone (once activated) on non-iPhones.

The European Commission is looking into the problems and is pushing for some pan-European solutions. There pan European solutions on voice have been helpful to Europeans, but not to Americans, but there might be some prepaids that can be obtained.

I have the local Vodafone 3G HSPDA modem - a Huawei E220 modem (http://www.huawei.com/mobileweb/en/products/view.do?id=282)that takes a Vodafone SIM. There are a few threads on that solution. Wikipedia link has good info on telcos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei_E220), too.

If you are looking at non-US countries with 3G, maybe Vodafone has roaming, or you might have an option to buy a prepaid SIM for several countries.

I guess this would work equally with the mobile-as-modem solution, if you can wok out roaming or prepaid SIMs.

Good luck!

Has anybody found anything better since Nov? I checked out Boingo and they are pretty good, but it seems that most German locations are premium locations at $.12 per minute or $7.20 per hour.

I need email and web access when I travel and I travel to Mexico, Germany, England, HKG etc.... so I need to cover a broad range of locations.

Any advice would be greatly appreciatedYou need to look into the Boingo Global plan:

"Enjoy access to more than 100,000 Boingo hot spots around the world - including 400 airports, top hotels, and even around town at cafes and shops - for one flat rate! Boingo Global is just $39 per month, with no per-minute premium rates, no contracts and no cancellation fees!"