Internets while deployed on the boat

[insanebikerboy]

Take this a different direction... What kind of email/internet will be available in the desert? Will I be able to use my gmail address or will I have to get another one? I have heard about 2 15 min calls per week, but will a Cingular phone work in Japan, Qatar, Iraq, Sig, or where else I may end up?

I have no idea about Iraq, Qatar, etc, but when I was in SE Asia I saw a lot of guys who had Cingular phones with the service chips. I can't remember the specific name of the chip but it's the little one in the back of most Cingular phones, under the battery. Anyways, just buy a chip from a cell phone company in whatever country and it should work just fine on that network. Plus, most of the companies I saw over there were all pay as you go, so no contracts.

 

[HooverPilot]

If you have the International Service activated on your phone then it should work fine. My T-Mobile worked great over in most of those countries. BUT it will be expensive - ~ $2 a minute. A better idea is to buy a phone once you get there and then buy the pre-paid cards. My local phone was 15BD at the Geant (middle east version of WalMart) and the pre-paid cards are 5-25 BD. I always bought the 25BD cards and they seemed to last a long time. If you are in Bahrain, you can get the whole setup at the Exchange for about $100. I'm going back in a few months so I kept the phone and will be able to use it again. C-2 Dets tend to have 6-10 phones that get passed on det to det to save some $$$. Your phone should also work throughout Europe, but again it will be expensive. Buy a prepaid card at the corner store and use a landline phone for the best option. If you are somewhere with good internet then you can use Skype or a similar service.

 

[millerjd]

I have no idea about Iraq, Qatar, etc, but when I was in SE Asia I saw a lot of guys who had Cingular phones with the service chips. I can't remember the specific name of the chip but it's the little one in the back of most Cingular phones, under the battery. Anyways, just buy a chip from a cell phone company in whatever country and it should work just fine on that network. Plus, most of the companies I saw over there were all pay as you go, so no contracts.

SIM Card is the term you are looking for. All GSM (this does not include Verizon or Sprint) phones have them. Cingular, T-Mobile are the popular services out here that have the SIM Card, but you can buy a GSM phone anywhere, including e-bay.

 

[snake020]

Take this a different direction... What kind of email/internet will be available in the desert?

If you are attached to an Air Force base in the desert, you'll have access to just about any commercial E-mail (Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL) but have zero access to chat (MSN, AIM, Google Chat).

 

[phrogpilot73]

SIM Card is the term you are looking for. All GSM (this does not include Verizon or Sprint) phones have them. Cingular, T-Mobile are the popular services out here that have the SIM Card, but you can buy a GSM phone anywhere, including e-bay.

If you are currently with Cingular/AT&T or TMobile and want to use your phone while on deployment, you can purchase prepaid SIMs just about everywhere. Your phone must be UNLOCKED however, do a google search for your phone and how to unlock it and you'll find out how. It's cheaper this way than using the carriers international roaming plan. I ended up with a $2K phone bill when I was doing the international roaming thing.

What kind of email/internet will be available in the desert? Will I be able to use my gmail address or will I have to get another one?

Almost everywhere you go in the desert now has Internet Cafes where you can use your commercial email address. You may not always have the ability to access it as often as your NIPR.

 

[mmx1]

Just a guess, but they might be using AIM express which is a web based version of the AIM application.

www.meebo.com

best web im client out there; I've used it quite often on guest computers without fail.

 

[Spot]

In Qatar, we had to create a GIMail account (It's the Air Force's e-mail program), but things may have change since I was there a year and a half ago.