Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of iPass providers, go to www.ipass.
com and click on “Reseller Locator.”
Under “Select a Country,” pick the
country that you're coming from, and
under “Who is this service for?” pick
“Individual.” One solid provider is
i2roam
(www.i2roam.com;
&
customers are GSM, and all Europeans
and most Australians use GSM.
If your cellphone is on a GSM sys-
tem, and you have a world-capable
phone such as many (but not all) Sony
Ericsson, Motorola, or Samsung mod-
els, you can make and receive calls
across civilized areas on much of the
globe. Just call your wireless operator
and ask for “international roaming” to
be activated on your account.
World-phone owners can bring
down their per-minute charges with a
bit of trickery. Call up your cellular
operator and say you'll be going abroad
for several months and want to
“unlock” your phone to use it with a
local provider. Usually, they'll oblige.
Then, in your destination country,
pick up a cheap, prepaid phone chip at
a mobile phone store and slip it into
your phone. (Show your phone to the
salesperson, as not all phones work on
all networks.) You'll get a local phone
number in your destination country—
and much, much lower calling rates.
Otherwise,
renting
a phone is a
good idea. In Australia—reputed to
have one of the world's largest per-
capita ownership of cellular or
“mobile” telephones, as they are
known here—they are available for
daily rental at major airports and in
big cities, and increasingly from car-
and motor-home-rental companies.
The cell network is digital, not analog.
Calls to, or from, a mobile telephone
are generally more expensive than a
call to, or from, a fixed telephone—
A60¢ (US40¢) a minute is a ballpark
guide, although the price varies
depending on the telephone company,
the time of day, the distance between
caller and recipient, and the tele-
phone's pricing plan.
An advantage of renting the phone
before you leave home is that way you
can give loved ones your new number,
make sure the phone works, and take
the phone wherever you go—especially
helpful when you rent overseas, where
866/
811-6209
or 920/235-0475).
Wherever you go, bring a
connec-
tion kit
of the right power and phone
adapters, a spare phone cord, and a
spare Ethernet network cable. Aus-
tralia's electricity supply is 240 volts, 50
Hz. North Americans and Europeans
will need to buy a converter before they
leave home, as Australian stores usually
only stock converters for Aussie appli-
ances to fit American and European
outlets. Most business-class hotels
throughout the world offer dataports
for laptop modems, and a few thou-
sand hotels in the U.S. and Europe
now offer high-speed Internet access
using an Ethernet network cable. You'll
have to bring your own cables either
way, so
call your hotel in advance
to
find out what the options are.
Community-minded individuals
have also set up
free wireless net-
works
in major cities around the U.S.,
Europe, and Australia. These networks
are spotty, but you get what you
(don't) pay for. Each network has a
home page explaining how to set up
your computer for its particular sys-
tem; start your explorations at www.
personaltelco.net/index.cgi/Wireless
Communities.
USING A CELLPHONE
IN AUSTRALIA
The three letters that define much of
the world's
wireless capabilities
are
GSM (Global System for Mobiles), a
big, seamless network that makes for
easy cross-border cellphone use
throughout Europe and dozens of
other countries worldwide. In the U.S.,
T-Mobile, AT&T Wireless, and Cin-
gular use this quasi-universal system; in
Canada, Microcell and some Rogers
