Working Anywhere

Orange Internet Everywhere

In France mobile operator Orange has launched a true pay as you go data plan named appropriately “Internet Everywhere” that combines WiFi access to their nationwide network of hotspots with 3G data over their cutting edge HSUPA/HSDPA network.

How it works is very easy. You buy one 3G data USB stick at a mobile retailer, in my case, FNAC. You install the software (note on a PC it does disable Windows and internal on board WiFi on most laptops but that can be fixed easily). They give you a SIM with a French mobile number (which means the service is SMS capable) and two hours of usage credit.

To use the service you simply log on, buy the amount of credit you plan to use over a 15 day period (for me its six hour blocks at 25 Euros per whack) and start to surf.

Of course there are a few caveats:

1) VoIP is prohibited

2) P2P is prohibited (this means Skype)

3) No streaming.

I can live with this as I can find other access where I can do all that.

For me, this is web and email, some IM and that’s about it. Oh, one more caveat. You have to remember to mail in a form by French post, showing your French address. Agian, for me, no problem. I have an office in Paris that receives local mail for me.

Hotels Need Business and Broadband Is The Answer

For those of us who travel, access to proper Internet connectivity is not a luxury item. It’s not an amenity like a bathrobe in the room, nor is it something to be taken lightly. Let’s face it. We have wine snobs (guilty here), water snobs (guilty here too) and travel snobs (guilty as charged) so why not a bandwidth snob?

I men, for the business traveler, high quality, in room Internet connectivity is an essential.

Over the past three weeks I have gone from great to average to downright poor connectivity. What’s worse though is the lack of consistency between brands in the USA vs. what I consistently see in Europe where in my not so humble opinion, they have not only caught up with us, but also greatly surpassed us in both speed and value per megabyte.

Let’s first look at what I’ve found in the USA

1. Eden Roc Resort by Renaissance in Miami Beach-Amazing bandwidth, offering high quality, low latency, no loss connectivity and they offered both a wired and wireless connection.

2. Hotel Victor, a Hyatt property. Amazing bandwidth, offering high quality, low latency, no loss connectivity. While they only offered wireless, it was T-Mobile and like always, it performed like a champ.

3. South Beach Marriott, Miami Beach-horrible. Slow, bad coverage and some outages.

Now granted, people don’t go to Miami Beach to surf (the net) but those of us who head there for events (like the September Channel Partners and VON conference) will need it, especially in light of how deplorable the bandwidth is at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

4. The San Francisco InterContinental Hotel—with 50 megs already on property and more available on demand, the Wayport powered hotel is my first choice to stay in the city by the Bay. What’s more their options of wired and wireless, ability to secure a private IP address and on-sight IT manager makes this road warrior heaven.

Europe

1. In London I stayed at what has become a second home, even at a slightly higher price than some other properties around the City. I’m referring to the Liverpool Street Andaz that includes free Wired and Wireless Internet access in the room rate. The in room coverage is fantastic and the speeds are most always rock solid. Even Apple iTune HD video downloads whiz by compared to elsewhere.

2. Barcelona’s Hesperia Presidente-after a challenge in the room I first was placed in due to a faulty access point I was moved to a similar room near the top floor. My connectivity went from under 20 percent to over 80 percent and my speeds, especially the all -important upload soared to T1 or better through out my stay.

3. Paris’ new hipster spot, Mama Shelter is clearly one of the new hotels that got it right. Every room or every other one seems to have its own access point all connected to a very fast fiber connection. Running speed tests, making Skype calls with the call quality indicator showed a solid 5 megs in both directions no matter where I was or floor 4 or 5. I’m also a fan of the Accor hotels, like the Sofitels and the Pullman upper end properties, as well as even their Mercure properties. Many have both wired and wireless, with the wireless coming from France Telecom’s Orange which means Boingo works perfectly if you have their global plan. You can even use Boingo Mobile accounts too. The difference is that the Mama Shelter Internet access is free, while Accor guests have to pay Orange for access, but it’s worth it.

4. At Heathrow Airport one has the choice of a Hilton, Sofitel and the Yo-owned Yotel. That’s the cruise liner size cabin you rent by the hour or the night. My three stays have always been perfect. You get bed, bath and broadband. Not much in the way of frills, but the cost savings covers round trip taxi rides to Southall for Indian food at Madhus, Brilliant, Gifto’s or Lahore Kahari for amazing Indian food well below London’s prices (put it this way my flight from Paris to Heathrow, the cab rides and the hotel was far less than the Eurostar, a London hotel room for the night, the Heathrow Express or Connect, cabs to and from Paddington, no taxi queues – plus amazing meals where a ten PM reservation is not abnormal.)

At the Yotel I have always experienced perfect call quality over Skype or SightSpeed, and been able to down load videos to watch on the plane back to the USA. Their connectivity is now both WiFi and Wireless.

So, what does it take to make a great connection in the room? First I carry a Belkin wind up Ethernet cord with me. I also travel with two travel routers. My Apple Airport Express and an ASUS. The difference? IP Address blocks. Hotels use either 172.x.x.x, 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x so I have one set for the opposite of the two most common and have no conflicts most of the time. I even changed my 192.168.x.x to a higher starting point when I ran into the conflict once and presto, the conflict was over.

The preference of using my own access point where I can is simple. I can run as many devices as I like behind it, which means Wi-Fi calling off of my mobile handsets, IP calling using Truphone on the Nokia’s and iPhones on the inbound side as well as of course VoIP on the mobile devices.

The Hotels

Now for the property, what does it take? For starters it’s not running a long range DSL clone version over the in room TV network. That may have been good ten years ago when three to six guests per night used in room broadband. Now with usage creeping closer to 70% of in room guests according to hotel GM’s and managers I speak with, the old DSL approach won’t work. Neither does a T1 or even a pair of them.

Let’s do some fast math. If a T1 is 1.5 megabytes per second and you have a 200-room hotel with 100 rooms occupied and 70 rooms using the Internet at the same time you have slightly more than 20k for each room in each direction. Gee, I had a 36.6 modem in 1996. It gets worse if someone is uploading a big file, doing any P2P swarming or if two or three guests are swarming and file sharing. The network just flat out craters. Bottom line. Hotels need more pipe. 20 megs or more.

Now lets look at the routers. A 10 Base T/100 megabyte router divided by 70 is 1 a maximum throughput of 1.42 megs per user max, trying to get to the net…can you spell traffic jam? Nowadays the gigabit routers mean much more flow and go. But many hotels have been slow to the uptake. Next are the wireless access points. Many are just better than consumer grade Linksys APs when what are really needed are the higher-grade products from Cisco and other. The kind that can handle the increased traffic, and the number of concurrent sessions, not what’s in many today.

Most of all hotels need GM’s who understand the issues. Most I talk to are reliant on an IT guy and don’t know the questions to ask. Some chains are mandating certain solutions. For example Hilton mandates a series of providers. End result, the lowest bid likely gets the work. Bandwidth and hardware be damned. I know one property where the bandwidth is so bad that I have to use a 3G card to get over 500 k.

The End Game

Here are some tips.

1. Book a boutique hotel. I’ve found they have the bandwidth and access usually far better than the chains. What’s more they seem to be more helpful to guests with “needs.” Lastly they are less populated by the IT heavy types.

2. Get familiar with a hotel if you travel to the same market area. I’ve pretty much given up the of bargain hunting. Instead negotiate a preferred rate with the hotel. If you visit a market once a month the “home away from home” feeling and the perks of being a regular will greatly out weigh the slightly higher price. But do keep a market centric knowledge of pricing. If you find the rate you’re paying is higher than you can find on the web, bring it to the attention of the hotelier you’ve now befriended.

3. Run speed tests. I prefer to use Speedtest.net and also a secret site from a cable operator. Based on the two, I can see how good or bad things are. The secret site gives me a reference I can count on. Track what you see. If you end up with less than a Meg ever, find a new hotel.

4. Don’t just settle. Make sure your concerns are expressed to the hotel GM directly. He or she has Profit and Loss responsibility. Given them the chance to fix things. The last thing they want to do is lose a regular. Lose to many guests and guess what? They’re job is on the line. If it’s simply a location problem, the can move your room. If it’s a pipe issue, they can add more. A T1 runs between $275-$500 in most parts of the country. If it costs $3500 to get proper pipe, at 70 room nights using broadband per night, for an average of 20 nights the cost per room is less than $3.00 per guest. How? 1400 room nights rented in the month divided into the $3500.00. Of course infrastructure, upkeep and such may bring the cost to twice that, but the payback is there, and besides, it keeps the guest happy, and a happy guest keeps coming back for more.

The bottom line is that hotels still will have travelers and for those who need business grade broadband, the hotels, especially some that offer bargains would be wise to boost their connectivity and become truly “designed for business.”

When It Comes To Business HotSpots BT Says "Open Up"

BT (British Telecom) is providing a method to business broadband customers to easily create a hotspot that they can provide to their customers for free or via the sale of BT OpenZone Vouchers.

This is one more way people can stay connected but from a business perspective it provides one more reason for UK customers to think about using BT as their Broadband provider. From a pull through perspective it also means OpenZone and roaming partner customers on Boingo have one more way to ask to connect.

This solution, the BT Business Broadband Hub is ideal for high-traffic retail locations like independent coffee shops, hotels, restaurants, nail and hair salons, or even the kinds of stores which attract a tech savvy and device carrying crowd.

With more light weight and full featured devices having WiFi like the Androids, iPhone, Apple iPod Touch and the hot selling Netbooks, BT is taking the right approach of deploying more hotspots as a way to drive sales of more broadband.

Hopefully USA operators will pick up on this.

The Regus Poster Boy Is A Familiar Name

It looks like the folks who run the Regus Business Center operations around the world know that a discerning and informed business person is someone to highlight. Just this week they issued a press release about one of their new, and very useful business person's essentials for types like me who need to be Working Anywhere.

This isn't the first time Regus has quoted me. Over the past few years I've gotten to know their first rate management team well, as I make suggestions and interact with them, often talking to their team, not only their booking operations folks.

To be totally transparent I am NOT PAID by Regus, nor am I some kind of pitch person who you see on the morning news programs who have been paid by a company to tell a story. I'm a paying customer of Regus/HQ and have for sometime had their Network Access product and now carry their newer product whenever I travel. Their business centers and the added benefits it brings (access to some airport lounges) are essential for my maintaining my busy and global nomad lifestyle.

As a work from home type, I don't have an office per se, but I do hold meetings, and prefer not to hold them in my living room. The Regus/HQ locations provide me that at a very reasonable per hour or by the day price. What's more, I can use their more than 900 centers at any time, and drop in versus sit in a noisy coffee shop and drink all the coffee I want, for free as part of my low monthly fee. When I need a conference room, Regus is where I go first, not always some unknown hotel where I'm unsure of just what level of service I'll receive.

I'm honored that out of all the Regus/HQ customers around the world they have again me as their "Poster Child." Why do I endorse them? Because their service works and delivers a super value that is an essential part of the business person's tool set that's needed today in the world of working away from home or the home office.

I've used their service in Airport Lounges, in locations here in the USA and in foreign lands. My best experience was in Lisbon, Portugal of all places. I strategically chose my hotel to be within two blocks of their downtown office. Not only was a great wine bar a few blocks away, but their location was along the avenue where all the better shopping was, meaning my wife could shop while I did some work. One morning, I woke up to a fire across the street and a crowd of fire trucks and police cars. The hotel Internet was cut off, but the two block walk and the open Regus center made it easy for me to make a SightSpeed call, Skype calls and the cup of "bica" as they call coffee.

To me, having the Regus/HQ card in my wallet is really more than having the AMEX card it bills to. It's like having a key to an office in every major business location around the world that lets you in without any reservation required.

New MiFi Means More Internet for More Users In More Places

At ShowStoppers last week in Las Vegas one of the best products I saw was the new Novatel Wireless MiFi. It lets you set up an instant WiFi hotspot for up to five users. Think Cradlepoint but the size of a credit card. It's small, light and a perfect way to make Truphone calls over 3G from an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Expect availability later in the first half of the year, first on CDMA and then on HSPA platforms around the globe.

iPhone Owners Road Warrior Tips

The Unofficial Apple Weblog's Aron Trimble has a series of tips that make the Apple iPhone an essential tool for the Road Warrior.

I'll add a few more apps that I like which make my road warrior like existence much easier to digest:

Fight Stats--without question this helps keep track of what's happening with your flights, plus gives you the options when I flight gets delayed or cancelled.

TSAwait-- this is a great planning tool. Take a look at what the wait time is on average. If you're early and the lines are short, you may make an earlier flight or, just surf the web using

Boingo Mobile--this app connects you to thousands of hotspots around the globe.

Truphone-like Boingo, they are a client, but the app save you money when you use it via WiFi or via their recently updated Truphone Anywhere service that provides call through service at really low rates per minute which for international calls is hugs savings.

If you visit London much and take the tube Tube Status is invaluable as is there are various London Tube routing apps available too. They make it easy to get around. I've also use the apps for Madrid and Paris with great success.

How Politics Stops Progress

I'm a fan of the concept of metro-wide WiFi and have been for some time. Unfortunately, the Earthlink model (which was really a model dreamed up by consultants) never worked. As a matter of fact, it failed.

But there are some good examples of Muni or metro WiFi working, one of which is in the city of Minneapolis, where the private company has achieved an 82 percent coverage penetration in a few years time. Compared to how long it took the same area to be addressable by cable and you have warp speed at work.

But, local politics is at play, and the open and public parks seem to be holding out over what I'll call politics vs. common interest.

At the end of the day, the parks will have coverage. It's just a matter of time.

UK Broadband Speeds Getting Faster, USA Also Seeing It Soon

The speeds for broadband connectivity in the UK are going to increase, with both Virgin and BT rolling out two different versions of high speed networks to their existing customer bases.

Virgin, which uses the same approach as USA cable operators like Comcast, is going to kick speeds up from 20 megs to 50, while BT is going to initially offer 40 megs on a fiber (FTTP) platform that could offer 100 megs symmetrically.

The difference is in the upload. The fiber platform offer the same experience for uploads and downloads, where cable modem is faster on the download. The cable technology is based on the Cable Labs standard of Docsis 3.0.

Verizon claims that 100 megs is also likely, but in a bit of back-peddling, seemed to say that we won't be seeing it any time soon. I'd say politics inside Verizon is at play. The technology is there. The only question is around the willingness to deploy it and when.

WiFi on iPhone + Truphone = Huge Savings When Roaming

Ok, so to be upfront as always, we represent some of the cooler companies around. Boingo and Truphone leads that list, as both are at the forefront of technology and making things easier for the road warrior. Especially the International Road Warrior who makes lots of calls back to the USA and Canada from other parts of the world. I use these services (and others) so as someone take it from someone who does more than just talk the talk. I also "walk the walk" as the original Road Warriors used to say.

This past week Truphone made some killer news with the updated iPhone client, adding the use of Truphone Anywhere to the iPhone, a service that is already working on the Nokias. Now here's the missing gem in the whole story. It's the previously launched Truphone Trusaver. That's the package for $15 dollars where you purchase 1000 minutes (read .015 cents per minute), something that I've had on my Nokia E71 and E90 phones for sometime with my longstanding Truphone number. Getting that package on the iPhone now is a huge plus as the size of the addressable market of iPhone users dwarfs the Nokia numbers of the higher end devices. What's more, the newly minuted Boingo Mobile client for the Nokias and the iPhone, the just released iPass client or the use of either DeviceScape or WiFinder on the iPhone means quick and seamless connectivity on the iPhone too.

So here's where it gets interesting. Boingo Mobile costs $7.50 for unlimited global access to their hotspot network on Boingo Mobile. iPass is rolling out a similar service on the iPhone too for $9.95 or $6.95 on contract. You can decide which is better for you. Of course, I'm biased towards my client, but the iPass program does have lots of corporate customers already so the combination of a corporate billed mobile and a corporate billed WiFi account plus Truphone makes for a happy CFO who stops seeing all kinds of global roaming costs. It also means that the traveling executive can stop having to justify why they called so and so, or worse, turn the phone off completely, and becoming unreachable for fear of a high roaming bill, something CrunchGear editor John Biggs learned the hard way.

So here's the math which makes the iPhone or a Nokia N or E series phone with Truphone plus the combination of either Boingo Mobile or iPass such a killer deal.

Truphone Trusaver 1000 minutes 15.00

WiFi Access 7.95 (I'm using the Boingo base as you can opt for the contract on iPass at $6.95 and the savings is greater but you may not need it every month and then their $9.95 is higher)

Cost $22.95

Figure you use all 1000 minutes in a month (regardless of being on a paid hotspot from Boingo or iPass or not)

Cost per minute $.02295 or less than 2.5 cents per minute to make calls.

What's more Truphone also points out that provided that you have purchased a new American Tru Saver bundle prior to the Expiry Date of your existing bundle, you may roll over any remaining or unused minutes into the next month, to a maximum of 2500 minutes in any monthly period. That's a really compelling offer, especially if you spend weeks away like I tend to do.

Now it gets even better with one other addition. It's the concept of a Rebel SIM on the iPhone. Since many iPhone's are sold as locked devices, you have to find a way to not JailBreak the phones. Unlike my Nokias which are all unlocked, for those of you who want to purchase a SIM in the country your visiting, like I tend to do, the Rebel SIM (and others like them) make it really easy to keep using your iPhone and all the applications. The combination of a Rebel SIM means Truphone Anywhere works with a local calling plan (no roaming charges) where ever you may be calling from, and then lets you take advantage of the Truphone low calling rates when you're not on a WiFi hotspot. When you are, the investment in a Boingo Mobile, T-Mobile or iPass account kicks in and the savings is even greater. Oh, yes and for those of you who really know how to travel, can find hotels that offer wired access, I suggest tossing in a travel router into you go kit, latch on to that and keep making those calls for 1.5 cents a minute.

The money you save over time will let you stay in a better hotel, enjoy their better grade of broadband and a better overall calling experience.

How To Make Calling Cards Obsolete?

Michael Graves has a post today on how to save money when making calls to or from overseas. He highlights client Junction Networks and their OnSip service which I use quite a bit when I go across the water, as well as some other neat ideas to save your money for something better than a phone call.

Here are some tips I've deployed.

1. In the UK I have a free VoIP User number from VoIPUser.org. It points to my GrandCentral number in the USA. Calls are billed at local call rates, I get to my voice mail and return the call via GrandCentral. I could just as easily do this by pointing the VoIPUser number in the UK to an inbound number PhoneFusion, CallVantage, Vonage, OnSIP or anything else that can be dialed and password authenticated which offers Find Me/Follow Me capabilities.

2. In France I have a paid for Gizmo5 number. That points to GrandCentral. Of course with DIDs and SIP connected pointing a number to any number is really easy. Get a few in countries you travel to regularly and dial in locally, avoid international long distance.

3. Pal Tony Greenberg, one of the smartest guys I know when it comes to disrupting the pricing models in telecom in the 2.0/3.0 era tipped me off to something with the iPhone. It now seems to work without a SIM. That means forget the contract, use the phone as a VoIP phone with Truphone or FRING.

4. Of course there are other ways. Skype To Go and Mobivox offer a two stage calling method, as does RebTel. Truphone's Truphone Anywhere is a call through service that is a seamless way to keep costs down too. These services basically replace the calling card, but with Skype To Go and Mobivox you can reach Skype pals as well as dial out to other number.

5. For those who want less complication in their life, Global Travel roaming services like SIM4Travel and MaxRoam give you local presence numbers, cheap International Long Distance and forwarding of calls so you can leave your number behind and still be reached.

Bottom line, with a bit of imagination and insight, finding ways to save money on calls is not that hard to do...even when you travel.