Update on Internet Connection Costs

[Roger Long]

(Somewhat belated)

My second cell phone bill was much smaller than I expected. It was still steep, about the monthy payment on an older model used car. However, it wasn't the cost of the car itself as I feared it might be.

When Verizon sent me the notice that I had exceeded my free data roaming allowance, it said that I could be charged up to $2.50 per megabyte additional. The "up to" didn't fully register and I looked up my usage online and did the math using that figure which about made me faint.

It turns out the the Canadian phone company doesn't charge anywhere near that. It's just a ceiling figure of Verizon's.

I went over my usage with the Verizon rep today while switching back to a U.S. only plan that saves me 30 bucks a month and I could have used the computer quite a bit more freely without having to switch to a diet consisting entirely of muscles and snails picked from the rocks.

 

[Mario G]

We use Virgin moble. We buy $20 pre pay cards so we don't get any unexpected over charges. $20 a month seems to work well for us because we don't download anything, thats what eats the bytes.

 

[sea_casper]

Check out Delorme's "inReach" Product

At the AOPA Summit in Hartford this weekend, Delorme was showing there new Sat communicator, it has tracking, fixed messaging and SOS like SPOT, with delivery confirmation added, and also has two way text only messaging with your email and phone contacts.

The messaging plans vary from $10/mo which is for up to 10 messages or $40/mo unlimited.

The device lists for $250 and wirelessly connects with an Android or a Delorme Earthmate

It uses the Iridium Sats and they claim better coverage than SPOT.

They say it will be available in October.

It seems to solve the messaging problem when outside cell phone coverage, at a reasonable cost.

 

[Roger Long]

It uses the Iridium Sats and they claim better coverage than SPOT.

The story I was told, but have been unable to confirm, is that SPOT also uses the Iridium and was actually started or funded by Iridium. Evidently, the voice handling circuitry of the satellites is degrading much faster than anticipated but the text and data handling capabilities are not effected. This will leave them with some expensive non voice capable birds and infrastructure so they are looking for ways to continue profiting from them. Fortunately for them, this coincides with a cultural shift in which people actually want to talk to each other less and less and text is king. (I have to text my sons to tell them to answer the phone if I want to talk to them).

If anyone knows more about this and can confirm, deny, or add, I would be interested to hear.

The Delorme outfits are interesting but I'm going to stick with SPOT and cell phones. My need for text exchange is pretty limited, mostly I would want to let people know where I am and the tracking does that. I've also found that my Verizon MiFi cellular web connection will pull in a signal even when no bars show on my phone and I can't make voice calls. Text and data can work with much less signal than voice. Same reason you can often text to and from people even when you can't talk to them on your cell phone.

 

[sea_casper]

Spot uses Globalstar

From SPOT:
"Author:SPOT Marketing Team Article Reference #:AA-00088 Views:2217 Date Added:2009-05-11 12:00 AM Last Updated:2009-05-11 04:46 PM 3.15 Rating/ 2 Voters

SPOT uses the Globalstar simplex data network to transmit messages. This is a proven data network that is also supporting tens of thousands of commercial and industrial data modems sending millions of messages each month for asset tracking and remote management applications. The simplex data network signal path works differently than the Globalstar satellite phone signal path, providing significantly better reliability and message completion rates. Extensive testing shows 99.6% reliability"

Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalstar