Frequent International Travel - Telco

I've been shuffling back and forth between London and Connecticut for the last 6 months. I've manged to do this with out killing myself on roaming charges. The worst I've had it in excess charges was the first month I was in London prior to getting wifi in my flat - that month it was 'only' $50 in charges that month for calls. Given $0.99/minute ...

For communicating with Marina and the kids Skype has been the savior. Video chat works well and can use from either my office, flat or hotel room. We have since expanded this to include both grandparents. This probably saves the majority of what I'd have spent otherwise.

I do have a UK based nokia n95 mobile phone, which works for those people that have the number and do not mind the international costs.

Since not everyone has skype, and I've had the same US 646 mobile number since 2000 (1999?). Given my shuffling back and forth I do not yet want to give up a US mobile. As a lot of people have that number and I don't want to yet make people change. I've thought about either a skype or gizmo5 call in number and have that forward to a PC, but that does require being near a wifi connection at all times.

As my wife will also confirm I'm somewhat 'attached' to my blackberry. I've got to have that working on both sides of the Atlantic with out excess data rates.

In looking around at options, I discovered that I could get a US based Blackberry on either T-Mobile or Verizon with 'unlimited' international data roaming. I had the Verizon world phone in a prior life so knew that worked. My personal mobile has been on T-Mobile so I let that be. The cost for this is $29.98/month for base enterprise blackberry with a $19.99/month add on for the international roaming. For both carriers this is hard to find, but in my case it is an add on option in my.t-mobile.com

Given I'd had $25/day roaming costs in the past this was a clear no-brainer. Note: I did look and I do not see any UK carriers that have the same type of roaming, but if people know of any let me know as I'll likely have to change at some point in time.

This solved one issue, but still had the issue of voice calls. Turns out US T-Mobile has something called Unlimited Hotspot Calling which is a $9.99/month add on to my mobile bill. This uses the same technology as their T-Mobile @home for doing the voice over ip, but works on any of the wifi enabled phones.

This turns out is the real solution as my Blackberry 8820 unit is a wifi enabled unit with UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access). When the unit is in the range of a wifi connection it knows about, like in the office or at home, the unit switches off EDGE/GPRS to UMA. It also switches, in my case, from the roaming mobile network to the normal 'T-Mobile' network as if I am in the states. At this point in time all data and call activity does not cost me anything.

I simply check the status when someone calls - if it says UMA - I am free to talk with no concerns I am about to go broke.

I've looked and besides the US T-Mobile network, I can not seem to find any providers in the UK that have the same type of setup. My Nokia unit in theory will do wifi calls, but with out the UMA settings it does not work. In my case perhaps this is due to my carrier, there is some hint on Orange.co.uk they might have it - dunno. If someone does please let me know as I do have the similar problem in reverse when I take my UK number to the US.

In the end this solved a bunch of issues for me, including what to do in the US when I'm in places with low cell coverage (including my house at times). The wifi option solves that in US or UK.

My remaining gripes on all this:
1. I'd really like a iphone - but can not deal with the roaming costs internationally.
2. When I'm just normal roaming in the UK I'm at GPRS speeds instead of EDGE. Has to be something with the UK networks by choice, when my unit hits France it is in EDGE out of the gate.

What I really want moving forward:
1. More carriers using UMA and more wifi devices
2. Google Voice - WHY or WHY can I not forward to an international number? I'll pay the international calling rate you charge me for making calls through the system.

Some might say that T-Mobile does not have the same coverage as AT&T or Verizon. Look, that may be true, but in truth it usually works where I need it to. Has worked a lot better than an old nextel I had. I'm not normal as also tend to carry multiple units on different carriers, but still, t-mobile has been my primary phone for years.

Zachary William Wachter

My sister and brother in law just had their first child. He just happens to be my first nephew. Tyler is also happy that he finally has a boy in the family, "too many girls" ;-)

Photos here

What am I missing?

While I do think we need the current administration to start focusing on the positive and not the political crap vs Limbaugh right now, I'm trying to understand a few things

1. Errr - if memory serves Obama has been president for less than two months. During that time the dow is down from 7949 to today's 6594. A loss of 1355, yea that sucks. But exactly which party's president was in place at the 52 week high on the dow of 13194? There is no argument that one can make that the downward trend started on Jan 20th.

2. Complaining about 'hand outs' to homeowners as a bad idea. If it's such a bad idea why didn't the banks reject the money they took to stay in business? And then to turn around and give bonuses after accepting MY MONEY? At least the 'handouts' on mortgage help is going to other tax payers in trouble.

I could care less about large bonues - greed is good - but only if it is your money. If it is, do what you want.

3. Higher taxes - heck I'm in the higher tax brackets being hit - but lets be honest at some point you have to figure out how to pay for what you borrowed. I recall the Clinton years as being pretty good and we paid more taxes then.

That said - lets stop the nonsense about politics as we are really running the risk of another depression. The last time we got out of it only after 10 odd years AND World War II. Given our weapons these days WWIII is not an option....

The chunnel is kewl

I've been in London since early October and have not had a chance yet to see almost anything outside of London. I did mange day trips to Manchester for a football game, York for a meeting and Kent for some understanding of the sites - but nothing really outside of London. Most of this has been due to the lack of time given I spend a lot of time traveling to/from New York (next trip is this coming weekend).

So this last weekend when I found myself with nothing to decided to take the train from London to Paris just for the day. Left at 620am, got to Paris around 930, wandered around, caught the 615p train back and got back to my flat in London at 8pm ish. ±2:30 train ride, no airport hassles.

Wandered around the Louvre. As in the past I find it just too big to deal with - I think you have to live in Paris to get much out of the place. Waaaay too many great things to see, way too little time. Found the same true in New York, was better to just do a couple of halls and then flee the museums and come back another day. Did wander to the Mona Lisa - though you can barely see the darn thing. First too many crowds; Second it's too small to see from 10+ feet away where the barrier is. I do not know what the optimal viewing distance for that painting might be, but it is certainly closer than 10 feet.

On the flip side one of the better museums is the Musée de l'Orangerie and I do not know how many people bother to visit it. If you find yourself in Paris make a point of seeing it.

Spent the rest of the day just wandering around.

From an engineering point of view though going through the chunnel was cool. Apx 20 minutes travel time for the 20 odd miles under ground. The English Channel kept Britain at protected/bay for hundreds of years of military history, but now you can get from London to Paris in a few hours with out getting your feet wet.

We forget how things change and how much easier it is. Though I'll still complain when my flights are delayed even though I'll be sitting, mostly, comfortably in a seat in the sky.