Appalling mobile phone plans

I thought Canadian telephone providers must be the world’s worst—but then I discovered Telstra, Australia’s major provider.

We’ve had mobile (cellular) service with them since April. We wanted a mobile each so we could connect with one another, and also to be able to make calls within Australia. As visitors, a two-year plan made no sense, so we opted for the prepaid mobiles.

The phones were inexpensive (~A$50) and the recharge amounts seemed reasonable at $30. The phones worked well in urban areas, and even when we were away from major centres, the reception was okay.

— I removed the several hundred word rant about the terrible Telstra service and complex plan details from here… Suffice to say I was frustrated! —

Telstra has a number of plans for prepaid mobiles, but use catchy terms like “150 free minutes” and “bonus time” to obscure the fact that they are all very expensive and restrictive. You can’t just buy time: you must choose one of the plans.

Telstra’s “Talk & Text” plan expires after 30 days, so if you haven’t used it, you lose it. The “Talk Time” plan runs for 60 days, but it costs A$0.40 to connect, then A$0.35 for every 30 seconds. The “Telstra Long Life” plan runs for six months, but calls cost A$0.75 for the first 30 seconds, then A$0.60 per minute…

“So just to be clear, if I go with the Talk Time plan you are recommending, a $40 charge will let me talk for 150 minutes?”

“Yes sir! 150 minutes to Telstra numbers.”

“Uh, okay, and how do I know if it is a Telstra number? And what is the charge if I dial a number that turns out to be with a Telstra competitor?”

“Sorry sir, there is no way to tell—but you could ask them when you make the connection. Or, you could call our service centre and ask them to check the number.”

Right. And that explains why the four supposedly free 1800 numbers we’d dialled to the car rental agency ended up costing nearly $30.

Calls to landline phones within Australia cost substantially less than calls to mobiles, and if the person you are calling is so inconsiderate to have chosen an alternate provider, you pay a premium.

Sounds like a good business model—if you can get away with it! For some reason, Telstra seems to be doing exactly that…

Coming to Australia and want to be able to use a phone? My advice would be to get a Skype phone for use in urban areas, and when you are not near a wireless Internet provider, be sure to have lots of coins for pay phones.

What’s in a name?

The address on Redman Road had been given to us directly by the person living there, so we expected our GPS to get us to the right spot. As Katharine entered the street name, it helpfully completed after 4 letters—but with “Redmond Road” instead. It would not allow her to enter the correct name, and the proposed road did not have the number we wanted.

Since we’d arranged to meet the resident at a specific time, we had to call for directions. It turned out that not only was the name wrong in the GPS, but it was also wrong on the printed municipal map!

The fact that the map was also wrong provided the clue to why the GPS data was wrong. The company Garmin uses for its navigation data, NAVTEQ, had obtained the incorrect municipal data for their database.

An error like this one may only be a minor inconvenience for a few people for now. But what if a courier can’t deliver a much-needed part for a milking machine, or an emergency vehicle is delayed in finding an address? Accurate navigation data is quickly becoming essential, and such errors need to be fixed.

Fortunately, “crowd sourcing” methods are available to enable users to provide direct feedback. My query to Garmin support got a speedy response with a link to the Garmin error reporting page as well as to the NAVTEQ map reporter site. Both were straightforward, but the NAVTEQ site used a map navigation interface to display the current information from their database.

How often do we get the opportunity to directly contribute to improving a useful tool? I’ve added these reporting sites to my browser bookmarks, and will certainly make a point to report any errors I happen to find.

DIY wind power

IMG_9033, originally uploaded by SpiritwoodPix.

This wind generator was one of three ready to be raised near Exmouth, WA. The pole is hinged at its base, and the "gin pole" on the right provides the means to get the leverage to raise it. Small wind generators like this are much more common than we see in Canada. Pity...

Where are all the posts?

A recent email asked “Is there another site where you are posting your blog? I haven’t seen anything new since you were in Singapore…”

No, this is it. Since we’ve been in Australia (starting April 6), we’ve been doing a lot more visiting, so have had much less time in evenings for blogging.

More critically though has been the lack of decent Internet access. There have been locations, but most have either been very slow, expensive, or limited to just a browser.

We have addressed the issue by buying a USB wireless device that lets us get a decent connection wherever there is service from Telstra, Australia’s equivalent to Bell Canada. (And I won’t go into how similar the two monoliths really are here; suffice to say we are as frustrated with Telstra as we are with Bell…)

Our main focus for the past couple of weeks has been to catch up on photos, and we’ve uploaded several Australian sets to our Flickr site. Now we can add photo links in our draft blogs to start backfilling the gap since we arrived here in Oz.

Use the “Select posts by week” pulldown at the bottom of the right panel to see older posts.

As I write this on June 7, we are in Karumba, on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Apparently the port here was once part of the only air connection between Oz and England when flying boats refuelled here. Now it is a fishing mecca—and has a large prawn and barramundi fish industry. The other thing it has are crocodiles: the largest ever shot was from near here, and was 8.5m and ~3 tons!! We shall be careful while swimming...

It has been fun travelling with my sister Jan & her husband Ron in our “chubby campers”. They are equipped with sink, counter & cabinets at the back lift up door, and a good queen sized sleeping platform behind the front seats with stowing spaces under where we lay the foam cushions. The vans are basic Mitsubishi panel vans, and kind of gutless (4 cylinder) but have extra power so we can charge batteries and use our computers.

This post will stay at the top until we are caught up—hopefully before too much longer, but certainly by mid-July.

GPS gotchas

In an earlier post I told of how we appreciate our Garmin GPS. However, not everyone is as keen about the devices, and several people we’ve met have told us of frustrations in using their devices.

In my opinion, manufacturers are at fault for selling these devices without decent user manuals—or not providing clear links to where people can learn how to use their devices. Here are a few of the complaints I’ve heard—with some possible solutions.

“Ours keeps trying to take us on roundabout routes.” Check and adjust the route preference settings. By default, some units are set to avoid unpaved roads, so if a more direct route involves some unpaved sections, the device will attempt to find an alternative with only paved roads. Other “avoid” options may include toll roads, limited access highways, ferries and U-turns.

“It doesn’t know about the new highway near us.” Go to the manufacturer’s web site to learn how to update the maps. Most will happily sell you updated map detail; some offer subscriptions to keep things up-to-date. Note that most should have a policy to allow free updates for a limited time after purchase.

“I can’t stand hearing her voice at every turn!” In the volume setting, select Mute—or just turn the volume down.

“It is so complicated to put in an address.” Practice. You can also use software from the GPS manufacturer to set up commonly-used destinations on your computer. You can then transfer the information to the GPS as “favorites” for use later. Some higher-end models now enable you to connect to the Internet to search for an address.

“It won’t let me enter a destination that doesn’t have an address, like a campsite.” Most GPS devices allow you to use a map view to navigate to where you want to go: when your destination is displayed, touch “Go” (or save the destination by name). Alternatively, the device may allow you to enter a destination by its latitude/longitude (if you know it or can obtain it).

“It takes forever to get a signal.” The device needs to have an unimpeded view of the sky—and more sky is best. This particular comment came from someone who had been trying to set their destination while still in their metal-roofed garage; backing out first solved the problem!

“The road names are wrong.” The GPS and its built-in navigation software is only as good as the data it uses—and errors are not unknown. If you find an error, report it to the manufacturer; the better ones have links on their web sites for this sort of feedback.

Here are links to popular automobile GPS manufacturers: Garmin, TomTom and Magellan. (These three have ~70% of the market; refer to GPS Magazine for up-to-date reviews and product information.)

Ears in the oceans

On a rocky point at the SW tip of Australia, the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse has warned mariners of the dangerous shoals since the mid-1890s. The light still shines, but today it also serves a less apparent function. From the interpretive signage:

“At ~1000m deep in the ocean, there is a layer of water, called the SOFAR channel, where the speed of sound is at a minimum and sound waves can travel hundreds of kilometers with little loss of signal. A hydro acoustic station is able to record these signals when hydrophones are suspended in the channel.”

The station monitors a huge part of the world’s oceans (see inset), and is one of a series of stations set up to monitor nuclear explosions and signals from non-explosive sources—earthquakes, volcanic activity, underwater landscapes, shipping noise and even whale songs.

“The Cape Leeuwin Station comprises an array of three hydrophones, a seabed cable, and a shore facility located in the adjacent National Park. The three hydrophones are located ~114km SW of Cape Leeuwin.”

The waters at this point form the boundary between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. The next land mass south is Antarctica.

GPS evangelists?

One of our first purchases in Australia was a Garmin GPS.

We have one in Canada, and use it all the time—even for roads we know—so there was never any doubt that we would get one for Australia.

The wider screen on this newer model—a nuvi 265W—shows more of the map at once. Our old model—named “Penny” because of her very British voice—spoke the directions but not the names of streets. This model—not yet named, but currently set to the Australian voice “Serena”—manages to speak not just the street names, but even words we key in as destination names.

A new feature I really appreciate is the ability to save tracks. As we drive, the GPS records the time and location as a series of points, and I can upload these later to our computer. The track can then be viewed as an overlay in Google Earth, so we can see where we’ve been. As well, because both the GPS and our cameras record the time and date, I can use my RoboGeo software to add latitude and longitude to our digital pictures.

The biggest advantage of a GPS is that it takes the edge off of navigating. We always have a map with us, and usually plan our route to some extent, but having a GPS lets us enjoy the scenery rather than watching for our route. It reports the distance to the next turn, and a small icon gives a visual cue to prepare the driver for the type of turn.

We bought “Penny” in England and appreciated how it eased the adjustment to right-hand drive. The same is true here in Australia: a spoken instruction like “At the roundabout, take the third exit to Strickland Street” provides much more useful information than seeing on a map that we need to turn right.

When we return to Canada, I’ll acquire current mapping information for North America, so the same unit will continue to serve us. For me, a GPS has become an indispensible driving tool.

Saigon solution: Medical tourism 101

Imagine being gripped with a major pain in the jaw, which intermittently throbbed and threatened to take your head off… and then just as suddenly disappeared.
Ow.
That’s what I’d been feeling for months. Over-the-counter pain relief drugs were no longer stopping the sometimes stabbing feeling… What was it?
No sooner had we settled into Saigon’s quiet Hoang Phong Hotel than I said to Eric: “Let’s find a dentist.” In moments, he’d fired up the Internet and found West Coast International Dental Clinic -- a ten minute walk from the hotel. It was 19:00 on Thursday, March 18.

Katharine at the West Coast Clinic.

Once inside the immaculate clinic, I felt reassured that here in Saigon, I could find excellent care. Fluent (in English) receptionists asked how they could help. Immediately I was whisked into an examining room – where Eric was also made comfortable.
Dr. Andrew Tsang, originally based in Vancouver, entered. After after enquiring about my symptoms, he took x-rays and examined my tooth with a focussed blue LED light, which revealed a bad fracture in the second-last molar on my right, lower jaw. Would the tooth need to be extracted? Or, could an attempt be made to save it, if the fracture proved not too deep? He was unsure and booked a second appointment with a colleague.

X-ray after cleaning out two of the four root
canals in Katharine’s tooth.

To make a longish story short, the procedure which followed took three more visits. Dr. Diem welcomed me into her office the next morning at 10:00 at which time she agreed with Dr. Tsang’s diagnosis. She recommended an operation that afternoon at 13:30. Everyone hoped she could save my tooth.
 She did. On Friday afternoon, Dr. Diem discovered my tooth had four roots, two of which were so badly infected she couldn’t complete a root canal… even after two injections. So she packed my tooth and we booked a next day appointment, this time with an anaesthetist.
How many dentists do you know who would relinquish their Saturday day-off to complete an emergency operation for a traveller? Now wonder the same for anaesthetists!
On Saturday morning, an anaesthetist joined Dr. Diem and the two women set to work. After my anaesthetic injection, I awoke with the job completed – and mumbling something about giraffes and zebras jumping about inside my mouth…

Dr Diem completing the root canal procedure.

One more visit allowed Dr. Diem to ensure the temporary crown she’d inserted was okay. It was, and she fully expects it will last until I can either return to her Saigon clinic in November, or to my own Canadian dentist after my return to Canada.
No wonder Dr. Diem told us Saigon aims to surpass Bangkok and Hong Kong as SE Asian medical tourism destinations. While I was there, Eric and I met many international patients – from Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
With superb care, top-of-the-line technology, fluent English, and a hospitable, clean environment, West Coast International Dental Clinic has my vote of confidence. And the price? A third of what the procedure would have cost in Canada, not even counting the anaesthetic.
Medical tourism? Why not? With prices at home rising and queues lengthening, it makes sense to consider going to a country where professional assistance can be obtained quickly, relatively inexpensively – in a destination worthy of exploration, to boot!

Calling home v2

We’ve had Skype installed on our computer for several years, but hadn’t used it more than a few times. Our dial-up connection was practically useless, and the satellite connection had too many annoying gaps.

By the time our connection speed improved dramatically last year, Skype had fallen off our radar. However, we were eager to see how VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) tools worked while travelling with our netbook.

Now we’re converted.

With decent Internet connections almost everywhere we’ve been in SE Asia, we’ve been able to call wherever we want. It sometimes seems a bit odd to be talking at a screen, but the connections have been excellent—better than most speakerphones in fact.

Calls to another Skype user are free, but they need to be online with Skype running for that to work. I bought some Skype credit online so I can make a call to any telephone. The credit gets used as you talk, and the rates vary. For example, calling anywhere in Canada costs 2.4c per minute, but calling a friend’s mobile in Thailand costs 13c per minute. The rates are listed within the Skype window, and the amount of credit you have is shown in real time. Making a call is intuitive: choose the country and dial. No need to remember arcane country codes.

After chatting with friends back home from the privacy and comfort of our hotel room the other day, we marvelled at how different telephoning has become since we were last in this part of the world.

Then—in 1983 in Bangkok—a call home to Canada involved going to a special building and being assigned a booth where an operator dialled the number. Calls needed to be prepaid, and were very expensive.

With mobile phones and tools like Skype, staying connected with people at home is a very different experience today.

High speed is not just a luxury

I was interested to see news about a Harvard University study panning Canadian Internet services a week ago or so. The Conservative policy wonks better wake up because Canada is at risk of sliding even further behind as Asia comes on-stream.

In northern Thailand we saw posters everywhere vying for mobile subscribers: 2mbps connections were being touted as passé, with 4mbps the new standard—and promises of 10mbps from some providers. This is for mobile networks, so these are speeds people are getting used to on their portable devices!

What bothers me is that people here in SE Asia seem to understand how they can take advantage of this capacity far more than Canadians do. Sure, we have slick web sites and no overt blocking of information, but how many Canadians are really changing their habits to take advantage of the technology?

My sense is that many Canadians are complacent, and have an erroneous view that we are still world leaders in this field. Most now have a sufficiently fast connection to see their friends on Facebook, and just grumble if a provider puts a cap on to make a downloaded “Desperate Housewives” show more expensive.

Mobile services are just as bad: how long will Canadians have to accept complicated plans, locked-in providers and a system incompatible with the rest of the world?

Here, people are integrating their mobile and Internet services to make things work.

Wherever we’ve been here, there are dozens of options for tourists to participate in tours and activities. Hotels get commissions for providing booking services for tours, yet keep guests happy because the prices are competitive and they pay attention to feedback. We told our Hanoi hotel in the evening that the Halong Bay trip they’d helped us book had been a disappointment. The next morning, they’d already talked to the operator—and told us that our USD20 taxi to the airport would be complimentary. They cooperate here, and use the Internet to facilitate it. It also means that attractions and services like regional airlines can run at near capacity because everyone is an agent; our one-hour flight in a 737-200 jet was only ~USD40 each, and we booked only 2 days before our departure via our hotel.

People here are using capacity to make things work more smoothly, and they will not just sit around and let the telecommunications infrastructure languish. The game is changing and I don’t think many Canadians are aware that it is even in play...

Electrical supply Thai style

We noticed the lime green shirts first. A group of men across the busy street were poised with a large cable over their shoulders—and another was setting up a bamboo ladder on the already-overloaded utility post opposite us.

When the light changed, they all raced across the intersection, dragging the cable and hoisting it up to the guy on the ladder. He scampered up into the tangle of wires already on the post, snaking the end through the clump. Then he dangled the end of the wire down, enabling the team on the ground to grab it again and pull it so it wouldn’t obstruct the traffic—all this was somehow accomplished while the “walk light” was green!

The “wire jockey” on the post then had to find a way to secure the new cable. Standing on the existing wires, he managed to tie some sort of loop to hold it, then clambered down to repeat the procedure on the next post.

Continuing our walk, we soon discovered the roll end of cable, where a man was tending the loop, ensuring it wouldn’t snarl as it was being pulled along the street.

As can be seen in the pictures, an ever-present billboard of the King was smiling down on the team as they performed their tasks. We did think his Royal Highness looked a bit sceptical mind you… Like the other “farang” (foreigners) witnesses,we were enthralled by the performance. It would certainly be in violation of any number of safety and code regulations in Canada!

I also wondered how the electrical utility could possible manage the supply of their services. Perhaps they can’t…

No wonder we’re all embracing a wireless world!

Getting online in Thailand

The options are many, and people make use of the Internet everywhere.

Most hotels have computers in the lobby for guest use as well as wireless. The speeds we've encountered are not great (typically 1-2mbps down; 0.15-0.6mbps up; 20-60ms ping) but sufficient for most needs.

Internet cafés are easy to find, and exist in more than just cafés: here in Bang Bao on Koh Chang island, a scuba shop on the pier has 8 terminals and charges 1 bhat/minute (~C$2/hr).

It isn’t a big surprise that mobile phones and wireless Internet is the norm though. Wiring is a nightmare, with no apparent rules for how to connect to the grid. Some posts have so much wire hanging on them that you need to duck to pass under them!