Voice and Data Devices

When I travel I rely most heavily on tools for voice and data communications. Costs for these services can be in the extreme high when you are outside of the United States, especially in the Middle East, Far East, and Central and South America. If you understand the different layers and options of hardware, service and programs that are available you can reduce your communications costs substantially.

Remember, the cellular carriers in the United States are in business to maximize their profits first; keeping call and data costs low is anyway not in their best interest. Some foreign cellular carriers have very high rates as well nevertheless even in those areas of the world the costs to you can be minimized if you know how to play the game.

What I carry to remain connected

In this article I will describe what I carry to remain connected, and how I exploit hardware, software and service offerings to my advantage. This is only a summary so I am, of necessity, leaving out a lot of detail and fine point. All of this information will be detailed in my upcoming book so that you can travel the world without worrying about coming home to a bill of several thousand dollars for making a few phone calls, accessing the Internet, and sending those great photographs home to your friends and family.

Just to put this in perspective, if you email one image that you take with your smartphone camera, and its size is an average of 1.5 megabyte, it may cost you up to $45 to send it unless you have an unlimited data plan or one that affords reduced rates. I am often amused when I watch people chatting away on their cell phones during they are enjoying their vacation on cruise ships. What they do not realize is that those calls may be costing upwards of $4.99 per minute, however that post-vacation surprise awaits them when they receive their phone bill upon their return.

The Holland America Rotterdam

On the Holland America Rotterdam, for instance, the average traveler would pay the highest rate of $4.99 per minute. My costs for communications on the same ship is free to about $1.05 per minute, depending upon what link I use.

I’m sure that some of you will think that I carry too much gear and that you only need one phone to accomplish the same result. Unfortunately this is not the case. In my world you must be willing to do a little more work to save a lot of money and to experience better connectivity.

One of the best methods to cut communications costs is to use several different phones, each for a specific carrier or country. I carry both a CDMA phone for use in the U.S. and three different unlocked phones for overseas, including a Blackberry Bold for special T-Mobile services. One of these phones is a Motorola Droid Pro. If you are intent on reducing call costs to a minimum at that time two or three phones are mandatory, depending on where you travel.

GSM or Global Service for Mobiles, is the world standard mobile format, used in more than 220 countries. CDMA, which is the predominant format in North America, is employed in about twenty countries. If you have a Verizon or Sprint CDMA-only phone, at the time your roaming capability is severely limited in most parts of the world, and you as a rule will be unable to receive any email, other than SMS on CDMA networks. You will not be able to use a CDMA phone on any GSM system because the transmission protocols and frequencies are not compatible.

My Verizon Droid Pro is a dual-mode handset that works on all networks both in the U.S. and just about everywhere else in the world, nevertheless I would not recommend it due to its in the extreme limited battery life and software issues during roaming which neither Motorola nor Android has acknowledged or addressed to date. These issues can cause an inability to obtain services when roaming.

In Europe I use my Droid Pro exclusively for data because of my unlimited email and data plan on Verizon, which they withdrew before this year. I never make or receive phone calls on this handset because of the high cost.

Samsung Galaxy SII

For my roaming phones I use a Samsung Galaxy SII and a Nexus S as then. One is for use with an international SIM card with in the extreme low rates in most countries and the other is for a local SIM card in particular countries that I travel to often. These include England, Germany, Netherlands, and Israel.

My T-Mobile Bold allows free calls back to the U.S. on a WiFi connection using Unlicensed Mobile Access through RIM and is only available if you have a Blackberry on T-Mobile in the U.S. Other carriers outside of the U.S. as well offer UMA, just as Rogers in Canada. In some countries I find that I do not have roaming except on T-Mobile, so my Blackberry is as well a back-up phone in remote areas where Verizon or their partner Vodafone does not have roaming agreements.

The 3-Cellular network when I am in the United Kingdom

I use the 3-Cellular network when I am in the United Kingdom. This handset and carrier is only used to access Skype, though it will as well work for local voice calls. Skype is integrated into their 3G network throughout the United Kingdom and allows virtually free calls to most parts of the world. When I travel to England I take this phone with me. It costs $3 per month for service and about $.02 per minute to call the U.S.

I use an Iridium Model 9555 from World Communications. The Iridium phone uses the Iridium network of 66 low-earth-orbit satellites to allow communications from virtually anywhere on the planet. I use this twelve-ounce handset when aboard cruise ships and when I am in very isolated areas of the world or in countries that do not have roaming agreements with our carriers. Though there are other global satellite phone services available, Iridium to my way of thinking has the best coverage, reliability, and cost. See my review of the Iridium 9555 handset when the unit was first released.

Motorola DTR410 or DTR550: I at times take in the extreme small digital walkie-talkies with me for meetings at hotels or large convention sites, or on board ships when I have to coordinate with family or colleagues. I recommend a Motorola one-watt digital spread-spectrum portable for secure and interference-free communications within a three-block range. The alternative is the cheap consumer portables sold in the best case Buy and other retail outlets on either the VHF or UHF frequencies in the General Mobile Radio Service bands.

The heart of every GSM network in the world

SIM cards are at the heart of every GSM network in the world. They are interchangeable for all unlocked phones for making phone calls. This card is from the carrier in the United Arab Emirates.

SIM cards or Subscriber Identity Modules are used on all GSM and some 4G networks to identify a specific subscriber and handset. Every carrier in the world uses the same system, and SIM cards are interchangeable on all unlocked phones. Note that during you can use any SIM for any phone to make voice calls, this may not be the case for data access because some carriers must match the electronic serial number of the phone with the card in order to validate data access overseas.

If you purchase a local SIM card when arriving in a foreign country you can drastically reduce your communications costs in many parts of the world. There are a number of technical issues and caveats with different carriers and cards which I will detail in subsequent articles however the important point is that local rates are always less expensive than roaming charges both for voice and data. Some carriers offer separate SIM cards for each service, and some combine offerings.

I have SIM cards for many countries that I routinely visit, including: United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, Israel, Dubai, and Panama. In each country, costs are about equal for service. On average, my local SIM costs about $25 to purchase on a one-time basis and at the time about $30 per month for up to 5 gigabytes of data. Voice calls usually range from $.05 to $.50 per minute depending upon the carrier and pricing plan. Receiving calls on most GSM networks is free because these systems are based upon "calling party pays" billing.

The world that operate like cellular networks

There are many WiFi systems throughout the world that operate like cellular networks. Boingo is maybe the largest aggregator of WiFi locations, listing more than 125,000 of them within their system. You can as well obtain WiFi services by using a personal hotspot terminal. It should be noted that hotspot services on U.S. dual-mode phones do not usually work outside the U.S. I use both Boingo and T-Mobile Hotspot service.

USB data sticks are available from many carriers throughout the world. This one I use on the 02 network in the UK. It costs about $13.00 for access to thousands of WiFi locations and 1 Gigabytes of data transfer over the cellular network.

When I am in England, for instance, I have access through the O2 carrier to hotspots in thousands of locations which provide much faster speeds to the network than cellular. If WiFi is not available I can use the 02 cellular network access however it is often much slower because of limited bandwidth unless 3G is available.

Unfortunately, there is no "global" USB stick that will allow the interchange of SIM cards. All are locked to specific networks with their own individual software, even though all of the modems are produced by the same manufacturer.

The neatest communications tools you can carry

This gadget is one of the neatest communications tools you can carry. It allows access, with a local SIM card, to networks throughout the world for inexpensive Internet.

Most of my USB modems have been replaced by an unlocked Novatel 2352 GSM MiFi EDGE/3G terminal which is exactly designed to access networks outside of the United States. The SIM cards from a USB device or just about any carrier will work in the Novatel terminal with the proper profile setup. This unit is available from Quantum Networks in New York and will allow roaming on any data network with the appropriate SIM card and setting.

I as well carry my own hotspot terminal made by Sierra Wireless on Sprint during in the U.S. This unit will allow high speed data access anywhere in the United States on the Sprint and Clear networks. I would to put it more exactly carry my own WiFi service than rely on limited bandwidth in public places.

While Android and iPhones as well offer mobile hotspot services, the battery life is drastically reduced. You can run multiple devices from either your phone or from the Novatel device. If you use a USB modem you will not have this option.

The proper voice

Once you have the proper voice and data communications devices that I have described in this article, the then requirement is the ability to properly route calls to the appropriate phone or computer for optimum connectivity and minimum cost. Through several different services you can determine how your U.S. phone calls get to you overseas. If you understand the options that are available you can accomplish your own least-cost-routing to reduce the cost of inbound calls as then.

In my at once article I will discuss communications access systems and remote call routing and message services. Stay tuned.

The past forty years

For the past forty years, I have worked investigations, both criminal and civil, first for government agencies and at that time private corporate customers. These cases have mainly involved major insurance fraud, heists, research related crimes, exploits of communications systems, and other offenses, some terrible and others more mundane. Along the way, I have written seven books including a primary reference on locks and safes, and have traveled to more than seventy countries, mainly involving cases.

I started picking locks when I was fifteen, much to the chagrin of my parents, and "graduated" to more sophisticated methods of covert entry for government agencies and customers, as so then as determining and exploiting vulnerabilities in telecommunications networks. My story was pretty much summed up by Wired Magazine in a feature article in 2009, when I was dubbed the "Keymaster."

I have always believed that full disclosure of security vulnerabilities in locks and related systems should be the rule, unless it involves national security, in order that the consumer, business sector and government understand potential risks. I have been quite vocal in the media with regard to this subject and have exposed many design defects or deficiencies in locks and alarm systems.

I use a variety of innovation tools when I journey throughout the world in order to get and stay connected securely, inexpensively, easily, and efficiently. For those of you that are non-technical, but need to use the myriad of techno-tools when you travel, I decided to write an e-book so "fellow-travelers" can exploit their gizmos and gadgets to optimize their functionality and promote personal efficiency.