When you are on the road, internet access can be a difficult thing. Your options are rather limited. You can visit the dreaded internet cafe, you can find wi-fi hotspots or you can use GPRS. All of these have both good and bad points and in this article, I hope to shed some light on these internet-on-the road choices.

Internet cafes are ubiquitous outside of the US, just about every small city has at least one internet cafe and usually more. Outside of tourist areas, the internet cafes are priced for the local market. It is very easy to go into a cafe to check your email. The price is right and you don’t need any special equipment except maybe a usb flash drive if you plan on saving any information. Yeah, it is very easy, but there are some very significant drawbacks.

The biggest drawback is the plethora of spyware, adware, and viruses on internet cafe computers. Anything you type into the computer can be intercepted by a third party so forget any banking. Casual surfing for news is ok, but email passwords and private information are no longer private once you visit an internet cafe. Heard of keyloggers? They log your every keystroke. Unsuspecting tourists have been victims of keylogging programs, do you want to join them?

Ok, so internet cafes aren’t the best choice? What about wi-fi? If you have mid range laptop, you probably have wi-fi already on your system. It is very easy to connect to a network and you never know what networks you can access. Hotels and guesthouses are beginning to offer wi-fi access to their guests for either a fee or for free. Wi-fi offers decent bandwidth at an affordable price, usually. A growing number of subscription hotspots charge a fees ranging from 2 to 8 times the price of an internet cafe connection. But, it is more secure of a connection. The positives of a wi-fi connection are decent speed and some security, but what are the drawbacks?

As with all things, there are negatives. First of all, because you are sending information over radio waves, anyone could intercept these transmissions and even if you are using encrypted communications, the host network could be compromised. While security is not generally an issue if you are using known networks, it can be if you connect to any available hotspots. Another drawback is that wi-fi hotspots can be few and far between, finding one is not always the easiest and it does limit your connection options.

A third option is to use GPRS. GPRS, General Packet Radio Service, is a method of transmitting data over a GSM mobile phone network. Not all GSM phones can be used as a GPRS modem but many can. What kind of speed can you expect? If you have a class 10 GPRS phone, you can expect connection speeds of 40k per second with downloads of 3 to 5k per second. Not broadband but only slightly worse than dialup and it is more than adequate to search the internet, get the latest news and send email, typical travel internet needs.

But what about availability? Generally, wherever there is a GSM signal, you can use GPRS. This means in even remote locations you can access your email. When I vacation, I take my laptop and Motorola L6 phone with me. The Motorola L6 is a quad band phone and is usable throughout the world. I know I can access the internet where I am. When arriving in a new country, I just buy a new sim card to put in the phone and I check with the provider on how to activate GPRS service. Prices vary for access and can range from less than a dollar an hour for access to $3 or $4 an hour to access. It is secure and you have the freedom to access wherever you are.

What is the best choice for internet on the road? I use all three methods. I always travel with my Motorola L6 for internet access in hotels and guesthouses. If by chance they have wi-fi then I use it, but if they don’t, I am still set for internet access. If I need to upload or download photos or large files, I usually visit an internet cafe since their speeds are usually better gprs speed. I know that having multiple access options when traveling has greatly improved my productivity.

I am thinking about going abroad again and I have come across many sites that are eye opening and give a lot of pertinent information. I found a Paraguay site that seems to give a lot of information. I don’t know how dated the information is, but the information is useful none the less. The site can be found here. Here is some of the information that can be found there:

Cost of Living
It’s fairly inexpensive to live here. As in most all latino countries services (medical, mechanic, house worker, etc) are inexpensive and imported goods are more expensive (than in the USA). In my last house I paid $200/mo rent for a huge 3 bedroom house with an enormous lawn and shaded barbecue area and two servant quarters. And I paid $80/mo for my houseworker who worked 54 hours a week.

And this:

Is it hard to get citizenship there? It’s relatively easy. Actually much easier than in 1st world countries. They just don’t accept poor people or escaping banditos. See the requirement list on our Living-In-Asuncion-Details page. Legally you can stay here indefinitely as a tourist as long as you leave the country every 3 months (or pay a small fine before leaving if you’ve stayed more than 3 months).

In other searching, I came across a site today about internet in Paraguay. The site is in Spanish, but it isn’t too hard to navigate. You can find the page here. The costs seem quite high, US$55 for a 64k microwave link and a little less than US$30 for unlimited dial up. Prepaid internet seemed cheaper, but still on the high side. International calls seemed pretty cheap through a VOIP prepaid card so it looks like they do have a somewhat competitive communications infrastructure.

I do like finding out more information and this site has done that. It sure makes me think that I should take a look at Paraguay and what Paraguay has to offer. The only drawback I can see so far is the general dearth of information about Paraguay. Look forward to more information, coming soon.

Sometimes you want to to have two computers using the same internet connection. It’s been awhile since I last posted an Ubuntu tutorial, so it is about time. Here I discuss how to share internet access over a crossover cable.

Ok, this config would take less than a minute if I was there. Maybe it will be the same for you if you can cut and paste fast. It can be done graphically and you might want to try it for fun. The fun part about Ubuntu is that you can experiment and there is nothing better than just figuring things out.

Open a terminal and type this:

sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network/interfacesbkup

That backed up the file we are going to work with and then this:

sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

Now you are going to add the setting for your network. A file will get opened in your editor. Look in the file and you will see this line:
#iface eth0 inet dhcp

Right above it you will see a line that says auto eth0. Don’t touch that line. You want to delete the #iface line and put this in its place:
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.1
netmask 255.255.255.0

This sets the ip address of your LAN connection. Save the file and then exit from gedit.

Now, hook up the cable that goes between your computer and your wife’s computer then just restart networking by typing this in a terminal:

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Now you are ready to use the connection.

1st, do a google search to make sure you have still internet. (IE see something went wrong). It also checks to see if we need to do any default networking.

2nd, is the other computer using Ubuntu or Windows. If the other computer is using Ubuntu as well, just change her /etc/network/interfaces file in the same way I described above, but just change the address, to 192.168.1.2 and add these lines:
gateway 192.168.1.1
dns-nameservers 192.168.1.1

If the other computer is using Windows, go into the TCP/IP properties of the connection and untick the automatically get IP address and auto nameservers. For ip address enter 192.168.1.2 , tab through the mask and for gateway use 192.168.1.1 and for dns, use 192.168.1.1

Now check if the other computer has internet. and check if you have internet. You should both be set.

Problems?
Send me another copy of your ifconfig
If for some reason you lose internet on your Ubuntu, run this command:

sudo rm /etc/network/interfaces

and then

sudo mv /etc/network/interfaces/networkbkup /etc/network/interfaces

When you restart your networking will be back to normal.

I know this is very long, but it is actually very simple, I just have a long explanation. In short, set the networking for eth0 up and then get the other computer set up.

This was a reply to a post made in a forum about Internet Filtering in Thailand, I hope it is of use to someone out there. Back in 2001, the then new Prime Minister Thaksin came to power in Thailand. One of the first actions of the new year for the Communications Authority of Thailand(CAT) was enforce their monopoly on international communications. This meant that not only were voice calls subject to their monopoly but also data transmissions and this means the internet.

All of a sudden, all ISP’s were REQUIRED to purchase their internet access from the CAT at a markup. Since all internet access now passed through CAT, internet filtering began. Whenever the Thai Police felt that a website was counter to morals or laws of the Kingdom, they would give the website address to the CAT and the CAT would not allow for connections to be made to it and instead display a police notice.

This kind of filtering was impossible before 2001 because each individual ISP had to be contacted and they had to block the sites, but with only one ISP to deal with, CAT, it is very easy.

That is important to note, there is only 1 International ISP in Thailand, CAT, all others merely resell and repackage CAT access.