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There are two ways to make data calls over a mobile
phone. The first is to make a GSM "data call"
much as a dial up connection on a BT landline. This
piggy backs the data onto an ordinary mobile voice
call, and results in a maximum speeds of 9.6 kb/sec .
The drawback is that you pay voice call rates all the
time the connection is "open", regardless of whether
you are doing anything or not.
GPRS (General Packet Radio System) breaks the
data up into "packets" and squeezes them in between
other peoples voice calls. This results in a much
faster speed (115kb/sec) and has the benefit that you
only pay for data sent and received. It is widely
used for WAP and for sending Photos. |
The downside is that it has a lower priority than
voice calls, and occasionally may get "squeezed
out". (I have had this happen in Italy and Greece
quite a lot. FS) GPRS connection is usually but not always be
available. If you want always to be able to send and
receive emails then it is necessary to be able to use
either GSM or GPRS links and to change from one to
the other easily. But, remember that GSM data
connection speeds are slow. What this means in
practice is that files are uploaded/downloaded at
about 1/10th of this figure. A 10 kb email will take
at least 10 seconds on GSM.
Only use GSM for data if you really have to and there
is no alternative. |
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The easiest and quickest way (in theory) of getting
up and running is to buy one of the "data cards" that
the phone companies sell. Normally costing about
£100, they simply plug into a PCMIA slot in your
laptop, and away you go. However, the chat rooms are
full of people complaining about the |
reliability of these things, and they do not
help you keep charges down if you go abroad. The
reality is that if you have a modern mobile phone and
a laptop, you have pretty well all you need, why pay
more? All you have to do is get them to talk to one
another. Now, read on....... |
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If you are going abroad, get it working before you
leave the UK. Any problems will get sorted much more
easily from the comfort of your armchair with access
to English speaking help lines. Once set up, it
should work abroad with no or few problems.
There are four stages to go through to get things up
and running. With good luck, you MAY get them all
right the first time |
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Connecting the phone to the PC. -
Getting the right
settings on the phone. -
Configuring the PC to connect to the
Internet -
Changing Email
account settings.
After
that, a little cost cutting work is needed. |
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There are three ways of doing this. Cable
needs a phone with a cable socket to a serial port or
USB lead.
Infrared (or IrDA) allows the PC and phone to
talk to one another if they are placed within sight
of each other.
The most reliable connection is via Bluetooth, a short range wireless technology,
originally intended for cordless headsets.
Unfortunately, few laptops come with Bluetooth and so
you may need to buy a "dongle" (about £12
from Maplins) which plugs into the PCs USB port.
Windows XP and |
Vista include Bluetooth software so
that the CD supplied is usually superfluous.
Whichever technology you choose, you will end up with
the phone looking like a "modem" to the laptop,
as though you plugged it into a BT phone line. A
useful feature of Bluetooth is the radio connection
which enables the phone to be put higher up, perhaps
on the cabin roof or, even, in a bucket a few metres
up if reception at chart table height is really poor! |
Getting
the Phone Settings
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To use the Internet, the phone needs a "profile",
which tells it which service to use. One way to do
this, and necessary with older phones, is to speak to
the phone company's "data" helpline.
This might require a text
message that sets up the phone. With modern
phones, the menus on the phone should be self
explanatory. On my Nokia 6300, I went to
Settings, Connectivity and selected
Bluetooth. That was all that I had to do.
To set up
the initial connection to the laptop, using Bluetooth,
right click on the Bluetooth icon in the
bottom tray, RHS. Then use the set-up Wizard. Select
"I know the service....", then "Dial-up
Networking". That should bring up a panel with
your phone name (eg Nokia 6300), double click on this to
connect to your phone. On the first
occasion, you will be asked |
for a 4
digit password. Type in 0000 (or whatever you wish)
and hit Enter. Your phone will bleep and ask "Pair
with (your computer name)". Hit OK on the
phone which will ask for the password. Enter your
chosen password and hit the OK button. You are now
connected and can dial either your GPRS or GSM
number. Thereafter, to connect the phone to the
laptop, simply right click on the Bluetooth icon
and select Quick Connect, Dial-up Networking
and the name of your phone. After the first
occasion a password should not be required. But, if
asked for a password, simply repeat the performance.
A software disc supplied with the phone might well
also have a connection wizard. This will be even
easier and completely intuitive. |
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Because
your phone will look like a modem, much of the
setting up will be familiar or, at least, Windows
driven.
Unless you are a young computer whiz-kid, this
will involve speaking to your mobile phone company.
With Windows XP, they will probably ask you to
go to Control Panel and open Phones and
Modems. Then select Modems, Bluetooth,
Advanced. They should then give a string for "Extra
initialisation commands". It will be some
gibberish like - "at+cgdcont=1,"IP","orangeinternet"
Then go to Control Panel and open Network
Connections. A New Connection Wizard will guide you
through configuring the PC.
Select "Connect to the Internet",
then "Setup a connection manually" and "Connect
using a Dial up modem". You must select the
right modem, this is usually fairly obvious e.g. "Bluetooth
Modem". Give the connection a name such as
"Orange Mobile". Set the phone number as
*99#. Then give a username and password.
To do this, Vodafone tell you to enter
Username : web (Orange will tell you "user"
).
Password :web (Orange will say "pass"
but anything will do).
The next section deals with the next phase, setting
up or modifying your email account. |
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Of the two types of Email, POP/SMTP
mail is the more cost effective as it uses
servers to download emails to your PC for "offline"
viewing and composition. Web based email services, such
as Hotmail or
Yahoo. only need an Internet browser, and so
are
almost always guaranteed to work in any Internet
cafe. However, the surrounding graphics add considerably to the cost of
downloading emails. They are a definite NO on a
mobile phone. To avoid having more than one email address and/or to
avoid using a different email address when away,
a useful web based facility is
Mail2Web, a free service using your normal
home email address and password.
POP/SMTP using Outlook, Outlook Express,
Mozilla Thunderbird etc are much more suitable for
mobile use. As Outlook Express (OE) is the most used, the following refers to it and it alone. To get
Outlook Express to work correctly with GPRS you will
need to make a couple of changes to its setup from
that used at home. You can use your normal home ISP's
incoming mail server BUT you cannot use your home
ISP's outgoing server. |
To set up a
new outgoing mail (SMTP) server - go to "Tools,
Accounts, Mail, Properties, Servers. Leave
the My incoming Mail as it is.
normally. In
the Outgoing mail SMTP put that of your
phone provider. You will have to ask the phone
company for this address, it is not widely
published. (Vodafone's is send.vodafone.net,
with Orange it is smtp orange.net).
One of the beauties of GPRS is that you do not need a
UK ISP; the phone company provides the Internet
connection.
It can be
useful to use a different Identity for your
GPRS connection and to keep it separate from your normal
land line connection. In Outlook Express go to
File, Identities, Add a new identity and give it
a name eg Bluetooth Clara.. When using the GPRS
connection, go to File, Switch Identities.
Address books and mail folders can be imported from
one Identity to another. For ease of access, keep all
your addresses in "Shared Contacts". NOTE
For those using
MailASail, there is no need to change the
SMTP. |
Using a GSM Connection
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For
occasional, minimum thinking use, this may be
adequate. Having connected the phone to your
computer, simply use your UK server just as though
you were at home using a BT dial up line; but
remember that calls on a mobile will cost more. From
abroad, you will be using a +44 prefix to a UK
server. In
Outlook Express, Tools, Accounts, use your normal
account settings.
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When
aboard, whether you use your UK server or a local one
is a matter of choice, your familiarity with
different servers and the effort that you go to. I
(FS) always used to use my UK server and telephone
number. It was simple, but I had to be careful with
usage or the mobile phone company got very rich. |
What can
go wrong?
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With computers, anything!
Well actually, almost everything. A big problem is
that when the system does not work, if often comes up
with this panel. If you click "More Info" all
you get is an obscure error messages which might as
well be written in Swahili.
With caere and a modicum of luck it will work at the
first go. Otherwise, perseverance, and help from the phone
company, will always get you working. Experiences
with company help lines varies but I (FS) have always
found Orange staff to be well informed and
understanding of an old buffer and his problems. |
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The mobile
phone charging system is a jungle through which the
EU is now trying to hack a path. In particular,
roaming charges have been a rip off. However, the
rules are currently changing and roaming call costs
are being reduced. Latest information, at the time of
this revision is that this will not apply to GPRS ie
data via email and web page calls..
Roaming
costs have been about £1 a minute for GSM and £8 per
mb (0.8p per kb) for GPRS (inc VAT and based on 2007
experience). Whether it is cheaper to use GSM or GPRS
will depend on your usage. |
Some
PAYG accounts do not allow data calls. This forces
the user to a contract and which one will depend on
your overall usage. Those wonderful and much hyped N
minutes of free calls are useless when away from your
home country. Again, this situation is easing and
PAYG is becoming more feasible for data calls.
The
expanding availability of WiFi hotspots and the
initiatives by T Mobile to implement mobile broadband
services are changing the landscape. |
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For anyone still using a GSM link it is most
important to minimise the time that you are
connected. With GPRS, download size is the important
factor. In both cases, suggestions are to
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Set up a Tools, Message Rule
in Outlook Express that prevents
large (say > 50 kb) downloads.
This avoids friends and
relations sending you umpteen
pictures of little Johnny but is
large enough to cope with most
emails. -
Tell your friends about this and
add a few words* of text to your
email "signature" by using
Tools, Options, Signature. -
Change the Internet Browser
settings not to display
pictures. -
Switch off any automatic update
software (e.g. Windows and
anti-Virus updates).
That last
may seem dangerous, but you will avoid much trouble
by minimising download size. It also helps if your
ISP has good anti virus and |
anti spam software. See also the
appendix to another page of this site for
more advice on minimising email costs.
The text
retrieval facility is useful to get web page texts at
much lower cost than using a browser. See
Saildocs or
MailASail .
Additionally for GSM
Further actions to minimise connection time are to
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Set up OE not to connect
automatically. You then get your
mail by clicking on the
"Send/Receive" icon and
telling it to dial your server.. -
Disconnect when you have
finished. Disconnection will not
happen automatically unless you
choose the option on the OE
Tools, Options menu. On the
dialogue box, select
Connection and tick the box
against "Hang up after
sending and receiving".
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* To my emails, I attach the following as part of my
signature - "Please note that I am using mobile
phone connection. Please keep messages brief and do
not send my message back. Pictures will not be
downloaded and files will be converted to text.". |
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If you are using GPRS it can be better to stay
connected if you may want to send more emails,
perhaps send an immediate reply to one just received,
are expecting a reply during your session or want to
look at a web page. There is a cost to connect and,
thereafter, mainly a cost on the data volume up- or
down-loaded but with a small ongoing cost to stay
connected as the computer keeps in touch with the
GPRS server. You can use the phone for a voice call
while still connected to GPRS. Putting the laptop
into standby will disconnect for you.
I (FS) set up Outlook Express and the Internet
browser Tools, Connections to say "Never
dial a connection". I dial using the
panel shown above.
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I then hit Send/Receive to get
my email.. -
If any need or are capable of
immediate brief reply, I do
that. -
Otherwise, as any new emails are
unlikely within such a short
time, I usually close the
connection by clicking
Disconnect after the sending
and receiving is finished. -
If I do not disconnect, then I
monitor the Connection
display (opposite) as there
will be a small cost. This can
mount up insidiously
It will
pay to experiment and see which procedures give the
smallest total of sending and receiving as shown..
Re-connection will be cheaper than staying connected
for a long time. Staying connected is cheaper than
quick reconnections.
As noted earlier, GPRS might not be available is some
places. It can be useful to switch from one to the
other at will. |
See, also, the section on
Compression below. |
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You can now dial from anywhere without having to
reconfigure the phone or the PC, however you will pay
for the privilege. Roaming data rates have been about
FOUR times as much per megabyte as when in the
UK. This is extortionate, and may well reduce over
time, but in the meantime, an effective way to get
the costs down is to use a "local" phone.
Fortunately this is not that difficult, now that
"SIM-only" cards with GPRS are widely available and
you can use these in your own phone. The biggest
problem is selecting the right card, as very few
companies advertise their GPRS charges before you
have bought the thing. As noted
above, you may well need a contract.
Language problems may make this difficult.
In theory, you simply slip the foreign SIM card into
the phone. The PC and phone configuration lives
in the phone, not on the SIM card, so you do not have
to go through that again.
The first
probably is the locked phone. Most phone providers
"lock" their phone to their network, so you cannot
use it with a rival. The provider will unlock it for
about £30, but your local "railway arch" provider
will usually do it for less. A DIY unlock service for
a number of types of mobile phone is at
www.unlock.nokiafree.org and an online
service is at
http://ucables.com/remote-unlock-online.html |
It may be best to upgrade your UK phone before
you leave. The phone company will let you keep your
old phone, and you can use this for "local" SIM cards
(so you have two phones). You can "pair" more than
one phone with the same PC.
You will
need a new "profile" for every country that you have
a SIM card for. (that is how the companies know a
"foreign" mobile from a "local"). This increases the
chances of getting the profiles on the phone
confused. One way round this is to "edit" the profile
yourself on the phone. If you compare two profiles
(it will be in the Settings /Data Communications"
menu on the phone) you will see that the only thing
that usually changes is the "Access Point Name" or
APN. If you edit this to the local value, it will
probably work. Usually everything stays the same on
the PC, although at least one country using *98# as
an access number (rather than *99#) but this is rare.
As described above, if you use POP/SMTP mail, you
will have to change the SMTP server to that of your
local provider. Getting this out of them can be
difficult sometimes as they have no idea what you are
on about. One company in Sweden provided three
addresses before they got the right one! A safe way
is to use the MailASail
service. |
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One way of
reducing costs is to use one of several compression
packages such as
ONSPEED .(probably best known from its
advertisements in the press) or
MailASail . Each offers compression services,
but there are significant differences in the total
packages. There is also.
SmartCom, not strictly a compression service
although it does reduce costs.
ONSPEED
compresses both outgoing and incoming emails. Having
loaded and set up the software, you just send and
receive as normal using your normal email account.
It pays to watch their compression display carefully
and, also, to monitor your mobile phone display for
the total kb transferred. I had to contact
ONSPEED to optimise my settings.
ONSPEED
has to set up a connection before any compression
occurs. It is best to make the telephone
connection using the panel
above to GPRS, wait until
ONSPEED says that it has connected before
using Outlook Express. If it does not connect, then
disconnect the phone and try again later. The
setting up of a connection can be a substantial
percentage of the total mobile phone bill. At a
guess, between 5 and 10 %.
The saving will depend upon your use per day and the
nature of the messages that you are sending or
receiving. Attachments of pictures, .pdf or
.zip files are already compressed. Similarly for
files of
GRIB coded information.
To send a
fairly small email or emails, but not receive,
it may be best to
disable
ONSPEED, make the telephone connection, watch
the OE
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send/receive box and disconnect as soon as the
messages have been sent.
MailASail works rather differently to
ONSPEED in that you set up a replacement to
your existing email account. You then get a new email
address eg
joebloggs@mailasail.com although you can keep
your old address and account, in which case
MailASail will continually search for and
forward emails to you.
There is no handshaking overhead that occurs with
ONSPEED. However, outgoing emails are not
compressed. This is not a serious problem because you
can control what you send and when.
Experience over 2007 showed that
MailASail is highly efficient. A major plus is
that the system removes all formatting from emails
and attachments. It removes images and pdf files..
Hence, you need not have a size block on incoming
mail. Should you wish to receive an attachment
with full formatting, including pictures, pdf files
or an email that was sent in Rich Text Format you can
still get the full version, but at a time and place
of your choosing.
SmartCom is different again. Outgoing emails are
reduced in size but not incoming. But, you can block
incoming emails greater than a certain size and
receive just the header. You then can decide whether
to download or not. |
Which service for you?
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Cost is important because of the enormous charges
that the mobile phone companies make for data calls,
especially when roaming. However, cost is only one
factor. Each service has other features that should
be taken into consideration.
ONSPEED costs £25 a year. With an average monthly
usage of around 10 Mb before compression, my
mobile phone bill was around £40 a month roaming,
less than half what it would have been without a
compression service. The disadvantage with ONSPEED
is that you will probably want to have a size block
on incoming mail. Further, it does not always connect
and can be frustrating. There is a modest one off payment for SmartCom
and no annual charge. The emphasis is on managing
your connection whether by mobile or satellite phone
At £240 for two years, £140 for one year or £90 for 6
months, the cost of MailASail is, on the face
of it, considerably higher than ONSPEED.
The greater speed of
MailASail and avoidance of the handshaking |
overhead will reduce the total GPRS download size to
compensate, at least in part, for the extra charge.
There is no need to block large emails; that is a
very real plus and one well worth considering..
The total
MailASail service is very attractive. For
example, there is a Web Diary link to upload
information and pictures for friends and family at
low cost. The latest version has GPS tracking so each
time you mail in an update you create a track of
where you have been. There is good treatment of virus
and spam, also (importantly) free email
technical support.
MailASail is certainly well worth considering
for long distance cruising yachtsmen. It has many
attractions for those using satellite phones or
terrestrial phones with GPRS. Perhaps
SmartCom plus MailASail might be the
optimum. They seem to be complementary. For the
casual user, perhaps cruising for short periods,
ONSPEED might be sufficient. However, the
speed increase might make it worthwhile using
MailASail even when at home and using a dial up
connection or, even, broadband. |
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ONSPEED
can give some very good compression of web pages
when these are largely in text format. One
particularly good example is the
DWD 3 day grid point forecast. To download
this from the web without compression means a
download of some 140 kb. At roaming
rates, this is about £1.40. The total
cost in connecting to the GPRS server, connecting to
ONSPEED and downloading the same page is about
20 kb. Even at roaming rates, this is about 20p, a
very impressive saving..
On the
other hand, to download a synoptic chart - say from
those listed on my Chart
Page, there is no or little saving using
ONSPEED. |
Web page compression
is really only useful when using
links to pages of text, such as those on my
GMDSS page . However, the best
advice, is to try when at home and see which types of
web page are compressed and which are not.
On the
other hand, if you know what a web page looks like
and do not want the pictures the text retrieval
service using the
Saildocs can be very effective indeed. Send an email to
query@saildocs.com
Subject: (anything). The message should read
"send
http:// www.franksingleton.clara.net" (or
whatever) The reply will come back within one minute.
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The whole area of mobile data is undergoing a
revolution and the landscape is changing rapidly.
The good news is that wireless networks ("WiFi") are
becoming more common, but you do really need Windows
XP, which has reliable, easy to use software built
in.
Connecting up is as simple as selecting a network
from the list and pressing the "Connect" button.
Windows does the rest. The downside is that coverage
from an access point is limited in range, and
some of it costly. It is usually charged by the hour,
or by the day, but unless you use it a lot, it may be
cheaper to use a mobile phone.
Sometimes
there might be an unsecured privately owned WiFi
connection that can be used. There are websites that
suggest how best to use these. BUT, be careful. There
have been reports of prosecution using a private
unsecured link.
Using WiFi you will find that Outlook Express will
work fine for incoming mail but, as with using GPRS,
you may need a different SMTP for sending mail. One
way is to go to www.yahoo.co.uk and set up a free
account there. Specify your normal home based email
address to receive email, but set |
up a new one for outgoing mail. Then, in
Outlook Express go to the Tools - Accounts
menu and
Set
up an account called WiFi or whatever takes your
fancy.
Under
General the outgoing address will be the Yahoo
one, the incoming will be as normal.
Under
Servers the incoming server will be as at home,
the outgoing SMTP will be yahoo.co.uk.
Under
Connections, uncheck the box that says "Always
connect to this account using"
You should
then be able to send and receive emails just as at
home through any WiFi connection. An alternative is
to use web based services such as
www.mail2web.com
It is easier, for those using
MailASail, because then there is no need to change the
SMTP. |
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Contrary to popular myth, and despite the dire
warnings the PC tends to flag up, both the mobile
phone, and WiFi (even "unsecured" and "hijacked"
WiFi) are secure. It is probably more secure than
using an Internet café. As for high security links
like Banking, the connection between your PC and the
Bank is encrypted, and using your PC ensures you do
not leave a "history" |
around on someone else's PC to be interrogated. All
your "favorites" work too. It is only prudent,
however, particularly if using WiFi, to run
up-to-date Virus checkers and a firewall, as you do
not know where these networks have been, and
infection is a definite possibility.
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You might
wonder if all the hassle outlined above is worth it.
Well we think so. In truth, most of the hassle is
only when setting the system up. Once you have done
so, things are largely foolproof. Familiarity may
breed contempt, but it also breeds confidence.
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