Blog of a Long Distance Worker Tech

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Tag Archives: WiFi

Mobile Phone Respite

When travelling, one of the worse things you can have is to have to sit near someone talking on the mobile phone or, worse, noisy SMS conversations – you know those, the ones with a bugle horn on every receive!

Of course, when you get on a plane this all disappears and it is absolute bliss. The same is true of many underground rail services. There is talk though of adding service underground in London and possibly some airlines. I am not alone. In a recently conducted poll, 76 percent Londoners declared that they dont want an underground wireless network for the London Tube.

via Londoners Dont Want Mobile Phones on the Tube | ITProPortal.com.

I do agree that voice calls (and noisy SMS pings) should not sully the majority of modes of travel with the exception that parts of these services could be made into ‘call zones’, the exact opposite of the ‘quiet zones’ we have today on some overland rail lines. This would be the best situation. However, I do want data services on the underground and on aircraft, as I see the need to be in constant data contact whenever I need it. Should it not be the best situation to add WiFi to these travel systems with blocking of voice services? It should be do-able, and for those who still manage to have the noisy phone call then they better well should be in the ‘call zone’ or they can have peer pressure applied :-) .

Extending the Internet on the move

When I travel I generally make use of whatever hotel WiFi I can get, preferably of the free variety but I have been known to use paid services. I also try and find any other sources of WiFi as I go, taking precautions when that WiFi is open (use HTTPS with my Google hosted email and VPN for privacy if needed).

hotel

Hotel WiFi can get expensive, particularly if you have more than one device (Laptop+iPhone)and for that I have started making use of Windows 7’s key hidden feature, the WiFi Hosted Network. This allows the extension of a WiFi or wired network to second devices, without the extra device cost that paid WiFi can have or for those places where WiFi has not been provided. Connectify is the one that comes up most often if you search around, providing a simple UI that allows you to easily setup but I have found it to be clumsy, unstable and buggy – particularly in that it causes my laptop to crash on suspend/hibernate. I have found an alternative that is a lot more stable and still free (although they appreciate donations)– Virtual Router. This simple open tool, provides a slightly more bare set of features but it works very effectively, without the problems with suspending and hibernating. I can recommend it. The only thing you have to remember is that the UI requires you to select the connection you wish to share and then activate it, when then switches and shows which network you are sharing over – a slightly confusing switch that is not explained. The alternative is that you can configure the command line for the feature as described by Paul Thurrott – I find the Virtual Router UI better Smile.

vrscreen

However sharing WiFi or Wired networks does not always fit what I need, and for that I need to make use of 3G. This is primarily when I am between locations. 3G roaming is an expensive business and I heartily discourage it but sometimes it is necessary. What you can do to make it much more workable is to figure out the various pre-paid mobile data services in each country that you travel to and buy a local SIM card. For this to work you do need an unlocked data device, and mine is an Huawei E5830 MiFi. Rates and systems do vary per country, but there is normally ways around problems like everything being in a local language you do not know, through to countries not allowing you to buy service online with credit cards. Best thing to do is talk to the people you are visiting for info before arrival for advice.

You will find that you will need to make use of all of these approaches as you travel to ensure that you are never knowingly under-connected.

Free WiFi

One of the most under appreciated features of the iPhone is its ability to auto connect to WiFi hotspots as you go. With my current repeated travel overseas to a few locations, I appreciate the way that it picks up connections to free access points and those Hotels I have stayed in that use constant WPA/WEP keys that rarely change. So much, that I almost can get away with not using any roaming data as I ‘drive by’ pick up as I walk through the city.

Of course this works only when there is no registration or login mechansim, which points to the need for the setting of a standard mechanism for doing this which makes it ‘interaction’ free. We can only dream… although wasn’t this supposed to be what 3G data was for? Oh yes, but that was before data was made more expensive than Gold by Roaming costs!

iPhone Battery Life… improvements

10-15-07-iphone The iPhone has (like many 3G smartphones) always had poor battery life when using connectivity for email sync etc. As new firmwares have become available, this life has improved generally, so that I have only had to recharge twice a day sometimes. However with the release of the 3.1 firmware, my battery life took a tumble so that I was in fact charging four times a day. This has been documented elsewhere on the Internet, and as a travelling man this had become almost impossible to keep going through the whole business day. Even with going to the 3.1.2 firmware, there was no improvement.

Then I accidentally left the WiFi on after leaving one office with WiFi and went to another office without WiFi. I did not really notice but suddenly my phone was back to and exceeded my previous battery life. WTF! Further tests with both my iPhones (yes I have two, one for each country) concluded further that this is a real affect and is not proven explainable although I have a theory that I would love checking. Technically turning WiFi should cause a REDUCTION in battery life.

The theory that I have is that Apple have boosted the transmission power on the iPhone 3G radio to allow it to better operate on the US ATT network which is notoriously poor in many US states. This causes the battery to drain further, and also explains why it was not ‘fixed’ in the 3.1.2 release – as it is not something they want to fix as it is solving a US issue that they are getting a lot of flack for. However, the moment you turn the WiFi on I believe that drops the 3G transmission power back to previous levels, which when WiFi is only beacon’ing (trying to find another WiFi network) means a reduced power draw and better battery life. The other evidence is that I note that the iPhones are noticeably warmer when only on 3G.

Not sure if this is really true, but all I know is that my phones now last a lot longer. Try it, it can only improve things.

WiFi on Aircraft

800px-Air_travel_as_it_was_-_Heathrow_1960 Recently I had time to ruminate on the availability of WiFi on aircraft. There is much written and said about this in the US, and on the face of it, it seems that this would be a Nirvana of tech. However there is a big issue with it in the short haul flights of Europe, compared to the US.. at least the little hops that are popular say between London and Paris, and London and Amsterdam. The big issue is that out of a 1 hour flight that is common within Europe, you probably only have 20 minutes to actually get your laptop up and running, and then browsing the Internet. In fact, I have seen reports via Twitter of people who have paid for the WiFi literally only to be able to send one or two tweets before the messages comes to shut the electronics down.

advent-4211-msi-wind-mini-laptop-small The big blocker here is that generally your electronics have to be off from the time you enter the departure gate and move to the plane, through to that magic ‘SeatBelts’ light goes out. Then it has to be off from the beginning of the landing procedure to the time you are into the arrival gate. This is by far the longest time of the flight.

This is even true of the slightly longer flight, not quite a real benefit to the commuter traveller. In fact the real benefit is about NOT having technology.

One thing though, the real saver is the smartphone which does not have the start up and shutdown time… for the snatched email and web browse on the ground, but then WiFi is not required for that.

Internet Access on the Go

For the last few months I have been spending my time in multiple countries, which in Europe means that the almost universal 3G high speed access I enjoyed in the UK is no longer available to me. What I hear you say? well the issue is not one of service but one of cost. 3G data roaming is pitifully expensive in the region of £1.50 per MB – yes per MB. There are a variety of options for reducing the cost slightly but they still price my usual traffic levels in the £150+ range, if not higher.

I could get a contract service in some of the countries but that is darned fiddly and also I have challenges about payment as I would not have a local address/bank and they get a little awkward with that. I could also get a PAYG SIM for the country I am in but it seems that this provision is low speed (less than 384kbps at best) and still remarkably expensive – nothing as enlightened as the PAYG tariffs that are appearing in the UK.

So I have been relying on Wifi – not exactly a perfect solution as I have found. In many hotels, the WiFi service is a charged for service which makes some of the Roaming or PAYG options look cheap. Really, is €25 for 2 hours a cost plus percentage service or a big fat fee with a tiny cost attached? However with judicious use of the options on sites such as Booking.com, you can find hotels with free WiFi – an absolute godsend when away from home and for working in the better comfort of the hotel room rather than the client site.

However, not all free WiFi is created equal. I have come across hotels that have WiFi only if you cross yourself and place the laptop in precarious positions… in the hotel lobby… only on particular floors or in specific rooms, and (my personal favourite) with WiFi so maxed out that you have trouble actually sending and receiving email never mind running a Skype call. All in all, this is something a little trial and error needed in your selection of hotels.

The last week has introduced a new one on me, which is the WiFi Access Point and laptop incompatibility. An incredibly frustrating situation that left me out in the cold for a few days until I figured out the setting in my driver to force it to be compatible (oh and the installation of a slightly older version of the driver that worked/works perfectly fine at home and in the office).

So watch out… particularly if you have Realtek Wifi built in or if you happen to use a hotel with Apple WiFi kit. I am thinking one thing I could do next time is to have a USB WiFi adapter to deal with the incompatibilities…at least reducing the possibility that I have a complete no-go situation. Or reconsider my 3G possibilities.

WiFi or 3G – Which is best for the mobile worker?

There used to be a time when you would sit back in your hotel, and dig out how you could connect to their WiFi. This might be anything from a ramshackle collection of consumer WAPs connected back to an ADSL service, to something much classier which was the full Corporate option. You generally got something, and it was real pleasant – although certainly in Europe it was not generally free, and could cost upwards of £5 for 2 hours of usage, limited to 150MB during that time. This was shared with everyone around you and you had to either be very trusting (i.e. stupid) or employ encryption techniques for your access overlaid on their network.

We suffered but then came 3G and low cost tariffs that gave you 1GB or more limits at upwards of 350kbps. These limits have increased over time so now you have pretty much unlimited 3G connectivity for less than £30 per month. This access was their for you to use very much anywhere and certainly was very favourable considering that you only had to need to use the Internet for 12 hours a month to make it financially viable, and this is even lower cost now with today’s tariffs.

So what is the best recommendation for the mobile worker? Well unless you are working in the Outer Hebrides then it is 3G all the way, providing you with access whenever you want it, wherever you want it, with more security (no nasty people packet capturing next door) and (if you travel once a week or more) it is generally going to be cheaper.

You can also now spread the love locally if you are part of a team, by getting hold of one of the now many 3G WiFi Routers, that take your dongle or card and share it on a local WiFi network, great for setting up that temporary remote office. This is also condoned and encouraged now by companies like T-Mobile in the UK. So get out there and get yourself a 3G adapter and always make sure you can work (although as I have posted, not a great experience at 70mph on the London Midland Train line).