I'm in Melbourne, Australia for the week. Working from here, in a nice one bedroom hotel apartment in the Fitzroy section of town. Fitzroy can best be described as the Mission in San Francisco meets Venice Beach in Los Angeles. Very hip, trendy, not far from the cool kids and loaded with coffee shops and places to find all kinds of healthy food, tantalizing breakfasts and very enticing, and healthy diet type places for dinner.
Wi-Fi while available everywhere, is very locked down. You don't find "open" hotspots, even in the cafes. One always has to ask about access, and often you'll find the speeds are good, but not great.
But for me, it's no problem, I grabbed a few toys though before I left on the 60 day trip around the globe. One is the magic SIM from client Gigsky, which I popped into my Android Nexus 7 tablet and have been able to use that just about everywhere. I can buy as much data as I need using their app, and what's more it's really true pay as you go. I also have my trusty Truphone SIM inside one of my iPhone 5's and another in a Samsung Galaxy Note as a back up…Data, voice, text and like Gigsky also a client.
Both service options are no hassles as I cross borders, and since Australia is one of the countries in the Truphone Zone, I can act as if I'm still home in the USA, even making calls and presenting local numbers here—and there…and getting sensational data plan rates.
But I'm one who just has to always stay connected, as best as possible, so I've also invested the last trip in a Telstra 4G/LTE mobile broadband modem. It's wonderful because now between the three modes of connectivty, plus my iPad Air, I've got really reliable connectivity just about everywhere.
Why is this so important? Well for starters I'm still working on things "back home." I have tons of conference calls and follow-ups from recent events, as well as the usual workload. Granted I'm missing some calls due to the time difference, but having reliable connectivity that lets you use Calliflower, Uber Conference, GoToMeeting or Cisco's WebEx, plus being connected to my Unified Communications host, and client, SimpleSignal requires that kind of reliable connection…and sometimes, as I found in Sydney at the Intercontinental, some ports are just not always open.
Here's the net net….make sure you have access, a good reliable way to have voice and video calls. Invest in the Boingo $7.95 a month plan to use WiFi where you can, but when you can't, well–go MOBILE BROADBAND.
