A number of people this month have asked me how they can get Internet when they are out and about; these are either people who work away from home where their “normal” Internet is located, people who don’t have access to a land line and therefore can’t get the usual type of Internet connection that most of us enjoy or simply people who are on holiday that have brought their laptop with them and want to get access to the Internet whilst here. It seems that we find it more and more necessary to be ‘connected’ nowadays – I’m not sure that such a healthy thing but then this is 2012!
There are many ways to connect to the Internet nowadays. Many bars have unsecured Internet access available for clients to use and this is probably the easiest and simplest way to get on line when you are out and about. It is, however, important to be aware that this is not a secure way to access the Internet and although it’s not likely, it is possible that someone sitting at another table could be accessing your computer whilst you book your airline tickets!
If you have one of the modern ‘smart’ mobile phones, then many of them have a built-in connection to the 3G mobile phone network. This network provides fast and reliable Internet service if you are in a good reception area – from our unit on the Moncayo market we were able to record download speeds of 17mbps using this type of connection; not bad when the average Movistar connection is just 3mbps! One option with many of these smart phones is to ‘tether’ or share your phone´s internet connection with other devices e.g. on my iPhone 4 I can set up a mini wireless network and share my phone´s internet connection with anyone within range of its wireless signal – it is essentially a mobile mini wireless router. If you are here on holiday, however, you probably don’t want to use your smart mobile for internet sharing as you may end up paying exorbitant data roaming charges.
If you want a more flexible solution than sitting in the local bar every time you need to get online then a good solution might be a mobile phone ‘dongle’ – yep that’s really what they’re called! This little device looks just like a memory stick will talk to the same 3G mobile phone network as your smart phone does and gives you internet access without the roaming charges (if you buy one locally of course). There are also local providers – like BlueMoon Solutions (had to get a plug in there somewhere didn’t I!) that will rent you a dongle to use whilst you are on holiday. Most charge a small deposit for the dongle itself and then rental starts at around 20 euros a week with a charge of around 5 cents per Mb.
If you decide to rent or even buy a dongle, it is important that you are aware of all the things your computer uses the Internet for and therefore all the things that could clock up the charge on your dongle. For example every time you start your computer it attempts to connect to the internet to check for updates for all kinds of things like antivirus products, Microsoft Windows updates, and even for updated software for things like your mouse and keyboard. If you are paying or renting “internet as you use it” then you should probably turn most of these things off in order to get the most out of the service that you are using – ask the person that you get the dongle from how to do this.