Dial up number

[snodvan]

Thanks

There is never usually a problem using the customers phone line. However, if I am at the offices of a customer I usually beg access to one of their machines and get to the web that way for freebee. The more difficult situation is having to use the phone line in the hotel (horrors) or airport lounge (ok in business class) - or when the customer does not have internet available. Having a 'local' isp is not viable because I could be in any one of half a dozen countries

[DocDutch]

well I guess that your going to stay at a hotel in Brazil or in the USA...most of the hotels now adays have wireless setup in their premises you just have to check at the hotel if there is a wlan available

[dragon]

Originally Posted by levig

well I guess that your going to stay at a hotel in Brazil or in the USA...most of the hotels now adays have wireless setup in their premises you just have to check at the hotel if there is a wlan available

I agree wifi access is becoming more and more common thesedays and would be your best bet for net access while away from home. Its increasingly common in airports, stations, cafe's thesedays so hopefully you'll be able to find a hotspot somewhere. http://www.jiwire.com/ seems to have some tool to find hotspots (although i have no idea if its any use i just googled wifi hotspot finder and thats what came up)

, if you really do have to fall back to dialup its worth trying for a local isp (i mean some isp such as their eqivilent of our 0845 isps). calling international will end up costing a lot more.

not sure if you'd be able to use one of those international calling cards with a modem (e.g alpha telecom .etc) but it might be worth looking into.

mobile data is another option but as you already pointed out its very expensive at the moment, as the tech advances hopefully it will become faster and cheaper.

[bob_builder]

You could get something like an AOL dialup account as they tend to have local numbers in a lot of counties (but that could mess up your other network settings).

A better solution would be to use iPass http://ipass.worldial.com/ who offer a number of business ISP services from 150 counties. You can dial-up using a PAYG phone number (if you are paying the bill) or a freephone number (if you are not paying the bill or are in a hotel room, etc.) and you get billed per minute usage.

[snodvan]

IPass certainly seems to have attractions. Anyone actually use it?

[bob_builder]

Originally Posted by snodvan

IPass certainly seems to have attractions. Anyone actually use it?

We use it at work to connect laptops to the VPN whilst out of the office but I have not personally used it myself.

[mcintg]

Regarding the lack of modem on modern machines, most mobile phones have a built in modem and it's usually just a matter of loading the correct drivers

[snodvan]

Lappy has a V90 modem built in plus the PCMCIA slot that normally takes the wireless card. I am total ignoramus and have no idea how to link to another wireless network should I find one eg in airport. My mobile phone is past sell by date ie Motorola Timeport. Nice triband but I have NEVER managed to get it to send a call from Brazil. Works great in much ofthe USA and indeed the rest of the world. Just Brazil and Colombia seemed to be a big no. Presume something to do with their networks

[DocDutch]

Snodvan, your lappy you got WinXP in there with teh latest SP? are you using the software of the card to run the wireless connection or are you running it via Windows Wireless Zero Config?

if not sure check via a right-click on the wireless connection and select "view available wireless networks"

[snodvan]

Levig

Using XP home with latest SP ie on auto-update so should be fine

Right click on wireless icon brings Windows type pop-up titled "Wireless Network Connection" . On RHS of the pop-up it says

Choose a Wireless Network and below that is a darker blue box listing just my home network (which I called Mylan) telling me it needs a network key and that I am currently connected

on the LHS of the pop up it list menu options as
Network Tasks
- refresh network list
- set up a wireless network for home or a small office
Related Tasks
- Learn about wireless networking
- Change the order of preferred networks
- Change advanced settings

In the latter there is a tick in the box saying use windows to configure my wireless settings