What Is The Best Internet Plan For The General Traveler?

Hi Redback.

Have used my Next G in some places where I was amazed with the outcome. But have suffered in others. Walkerston was rather disappointing along with the top of Telecom Hill at Landcrusier Park (QLD) where my CDMA did work and Next G failed.

It appears to be hit and miss. But in the majority of places it is hit.

Redeye.

Last trip we took up to Kimberly we checked in at the local internet shop (I suppose they will be called stores soon too) that country towns have or tried at various other suppliers of internet service. The best we got was in Wyndham where a good wireless connection allowed us to download some fav podcasts. The worst was in Derby where the connections were slow and expensive.

If it's email you want there is usually somewhere that you can do your thing quickly and cheaply in almost any town. I dont know why every pub shouldn't have one just to bring in a bit of business but there you go.

In kunanarra I logged in on an open access wireless connection to chat to the grandson on his runescape game that he plays but I dont feel good about using someone else's bandspace. Kept it brief.

Thats the extent of my experience anyway. I am sure some one else has a rosier story.

Owen

If you have a laptop probably a 10hour account with BIGPOND is the best.
Telstra is farrrrrrr tooooooo dear
Using a cell fone as a modem is an expensive way of doing it as well, as the data prices are a bit horrible

Hey Redback,

Who's your mobile provider??

I just received in the mail the latest Optus Broadband Unplugged offer.

$19.99/month, first 4 months free when you sign up for 2 years, 1GB plan.

You must have a mobile with Optus to be eligible.

Not sure whether this would suit your needs or not??

Scorcher

Redback a similar post on this was done last week if you do a search you will find it and others.

Is your mobile a NextG? If not you may not get much coverage outside of metro areas. As your question is about travelling I assume you will revert back to a 'normal' plan when you are back home. If this is the case then you can use the Data Packs with Telstra. You don't sign up to any contract, it's a month to month thing but is expensive. For 1 Gig $89/month! We are doing that at the moment and apart from the price quite happy with its performance.

Cheers,

Mark.

You can use your home plan if you have one. From discussions I had with people when I was looking into it the biggest issue is getting a reliable signal through Next G and the cost of the connection. So we opted to do the internet cafe thing for a couple of $ it's much more cost effective.

Hi,
We travel and work around the country we use on of these
Bigpond Wireless on a 49.95 plan that allows 1gb a month. All up it will cost around $900 for 12 months (including unit)

The other is a card that slots into the laptop but the plan is a bit more expensive and the signal isn't as strong. ($89 for same 1 gb)


We also have an external aerial mount to the bull bar that does boost up the signal strength 1 or 2 bar sometimes.

And no we don't like bigpond and yes we do think they are expensive, but its the only one that gives us the freedom.

We used to use the public internet services but we question the security on some of the places we have seen. This way we can do what we want and basically where we want.

Because of the work we do, we often end up in some pretty remote places for a while. We have been fortunate that the lowest we have got so far is 1 bar and connect to the aerial was 3 bars.

The actual unit is 240 v stepped down to 6 volt and there is info on the net how you can set it up to run off 12volt.

We run ours through an inverter when there is no mains power available.

Granted there is places that will have no coverage, but on a whole I think this is one of the better options we had available to us.

HTH
Cheers

3 have a decent data plan for mobiles:
$15 Mobile Broadband Plan = 500MB $0 device monthly repayment over 24 months $0 device monthly repayment over 24 months
3 Broadband Zone allowance: 500MB
3 Broadband Zone additional usage: 10c per MB
National Roaming allowance: 1MB
National Roaming usage: $1.65 per MB
Terms and Conditions for existing 3 Mobile customers only
$29 Mobile Broadband Plan = 2GB $0 device monthly repayment over 24 months $0 device monthly repayment over 24 months
3 Broadband Zone allowance: 2GB
3 Broadband Zone additional usage: 10c per MB
National Roaming allowance: 2MB
National Roaming usage: $1.65 per MB
Terms and Conditions
$49 Mobile Broadband Plan = 4GB $0 device monthly repayment over 24 months $0 device monthly repayment over 24 months
3 Broadband Zone allowance: 4GB
3 Broadband Zone additional usage: 10c per MB
National Roaming allowance: 4MB
National Roaming usage: $1.65 per MB
Terms and Conditions
$69 Mobile Broadband Plan = 6GB $0 device monthly repayment over 24 months $0 device monthly repayment over 24 months
3 Broadband Zone allowance: 6GB
3 Broadband Zone additional usage: 10c per MB
National Roaming allowance: 6MB
National Roaming usage: $1.65 per MB
Terms and Conditions