CF-19 Around the world Student access

Hello, I've been reading and learning so much good info from this site. I need some advise. My wife and I are both full time students, we would like to take online classes and our cf-19s and travel around the world for a semester. What would you recommend for internet access? We intend to use free wifi as much as possible but I know there will be times when I need mobile broadband, mifi, 3g or some other gizmo mobile internet type thing I know nothing about. Does anyone have experience or suggestions of a company or provider that can help us both stay connected on a students budget while around our planet?

Thanks for any advise, toughbooks definately rule!

 

easiest/cheapest thing to do is to use a local sim card. I don't know if your CF-19 has a Gobi card inside, but I have one and I use a local sim. Depending on the time I stay, I use a prepaid card (short periods, not as cheap, but no hassle, no strings) or a monthly subscrition plan (longer periods often all kinds of strings attached). Not all providers and/or countries do have monthly subscrition plans. Some countries won't sell you plans without a local resident address, so then you're still back to the prepaid plans. Using a open/free wifi is good for most things, just don't do any things on them that requier a password, bank business, things that involve creditcards (or have a credit card coupled!!). That's where you have your own sim for.
If your CF-19's don't contain a 3G Gobi card, make it easy and buy a Mifi. I bought one from Three in the UK (I live in the netherlands) for £70 with 3Gb of data (or 1Gb, don't remember) after getting back home, I hacked it and now it will take any sim from any provider in any country. Works like a dream. But you can also just buy them unlocked (better, safer and a bit more legal). advantage of mifi's is that they allow you to couple 3 or 4 devices to one mifi (so you can both use the internet). And in places with spotty coverage you can hang the mifi high in a window, so you have better signal/speeds and it doesn't need a power outlet. It works between 2 and 4 hours on a charge. I also brought with me a very long USB-to-USB-mini cable so I could hang it from the window, still charge it and so use it without depleting the battery. when you have the mifi in your backpack, you can turn it on and use google maps and internet on your phone on the go. Really handy to find your way around town. But the 4 hour battery life is a bit of a bummer, 10-12 hours would have been better. Then again, mine is 2 years old, perhaps they have advanced a bit?!
But I still like to have a good old large map

Oh if you want to "travel the world in eighty days" (stay a few days in each country, traveling japanese/chinese style like I see a lot overhere, bus, every body out, snap pictures of 17th century windmills, back in the bus...) check what your provider have to offer. some have internet for as little as 2 euro's a day fee and then you can call/internet for the home-rates. this limits you to a specific provider in each country, but that doesn't have to be a problem I guess.

Edit: typo's. Became quite a long post

 

Thank you for the great advise. I'm going to go with the mifi. I like the idea of using prepaid sim cards anywhere. Is there a product brand you would recommend?
I was considering buying an unlocked at&t Sierra Wireless Mobile Hot Spot WIFI Elevate 754S 4G MIFI Router off of ebay. But if your familiar with something else I'd rather take your advise than make an uninformed purchase.
Thank you again for your help and time ~ Bill

 

I don't know the Sierra one, the one I've got is a Huawei E585 (I think, my father has it with him, he's on holiday.)
Look for a decent battery life although that is not everything, and look for as many bands as you can get. The E585 has HSUPA / HSDPA / UMTS 900/2100 MHz *EDGE / GPRS / GSM 1900/1800/900/850 MHz As I said, it’s a bit older and it doesn’t have the CDMA which would make it even more versatile, but it does work in a whole lot of countries. Just be sure to check if the provider you're going to use for the prepaid sim does work with one (or more) of these bands.
I myself wouldn't want to buy a (non-factory) unlocked/hacked one as a primary device if it is crucial to have a connection. These mifi's have been locked by the factory for a specific provider and subsequently been hacked by some-one and you're not able to repeat that yourself, most likely. If for one or another reason the software crashes big time, you need to flash the firmware on this thing, you're in trouble, because you can't unlock it again. If it ever wants to flash the firmware at all.
I don't know if it saves a lot of money buying a hacked one, I don’t know your budget, I don't know if it is a crucial piece of equipment for you, but just think it through before. Can save a lot of trouble some times (learned that the hard way )

Just out of curiosity, where do you plan to go and what do you want to study?
What kind of CF-19’s do you have? Do you have the chiclet and backlit keys?

I forgot one thing, prepaid can be "expensive". I wanted a prepaid sim-card for a friend that is staying in Holland for 10 days and best I could find on the best network was €0,33/Mb!! ouch. Lesser networks still asked €0,25/Mb. I ended up giving him my sim from a data plan (€0,04/Mb)
compare that to Three in the UK that sold a prepaid package; the mifi for £70 combined with 1Gb of data for the first 6 months... and if I paid an extra £10 I got 3Gb of data.
So be prepared to see huge differences and be sure to shop and look around before asking. Ow and always try to pay cash; you can't get the nasty surprise of recurring charges on your CC.

 

Thank you for the unlocked tip, I didn't think about the flash aspect.
My wife has the a CF-19FHGAXAM I have a CF-19KHRAGAM. I got pretty good deals on both of them from ebay, I upgraded them to win 7, maxed out the ram, put in crucial ssd. I have Gobi installed on the 19F but not the 19K. I went kind of overboard and bought the backlite emmisive keyboards and felt like it was money well spent, love the things. I'm retired military, studying public health and working towards a master of public health degree focusing on Epidemiology. I like taking online classes through the winter months in Oregon. I can catch a military space a flight to just about anywhere. My route this fall/winter will be through Hawaii,Japan,Singapore and then a month or so in Thailand. From there on to Germany,Italy,Spain etc. I enjoy learning other cultures, foods and peoples. My trips are generally about three months long, living out of a backpack and staying on the cheap as much as possible. I can generally get wifi when I need it, but there are times when I have to turn in home work by deadlines and have had to scramble which ultimately costs me more money. Thanks again for the help.

 

Wow, nice trips indeed! I wouldn’t mind taking one such trip for just traveling! (But being blessed with a wife and a 8 month old baby I can’t complain about not traveling/ being away too long from home, it’s wonderful coming home every night!)

Those are some good laptops indeed! Quite good for traveling the world, fast enough for text-editing and light enough to be always with you.
The new keyboard might have been a lot of money, but IMHO it's the best of them all. For me (I type about 3-12 pages on some days on it) it was totally worth it having this one. Maxed out memory and SSD’s will keep them snappy!

Take care and if you have some time, do tell us how the 19’s work for you!

 

Double post :S

 

A lot of what you've suggested highly depends on where you are.

As mentioned, prepaid SIM cards for data operation can be very expensive in some countries.

Also, in some countries free wifi is extremely widespread; so much so you'd hardly need 3G operation.

Hawaii will be covered under a USA data agreement from home I would presume as it's part of the states (I'm led to believe ).
Japan & Singapore might be good to get a local SIM - although I can't remember the requirements for getting a prepaid SIM or if it's easy or not.
For Thailand, free wifi is pretty widespread, and is often included in hostels/hotels.
For Europe, data on prepaid plans can get expensive, especially if you are transferring large amounts of data (does "online classes" mean video conferencing?).