Solutions for connecting to internet in remote areas

[deviltronics]

I'm off to Pakistan on Christmas day for a few weeks and need access to the internet with a decent connection.

Our family home is quite remote there so the only option I think I have is by connecting via GPRS. My mobile phone has an internal modem which I can use to connect to my laptop.

O2 have given me a quote at £6 per MB downloaded. From what I have gathered an average email is 50kb, so for checking 20 emails it's going to cost me £6, which seems to be rather expensive!

Anyone know of any other solutions?

I could get a sim card from out there which should work out a lot cheaper but apparently the connections are pretty poor.

Anyone got a mini satellite I could borrow?

[Marky]

Ooh good post/question, this would be very useful info if anyone has a good idea. I was in Rajasthan about 2 years ago, and I was working off my 3g card .. which at £8/mb (vodafone) (now £10/mb I believe) ended up being a very expensive lesson ...

I am going to be in various parts of India and Sri Lanka soon, so any ideas welcome - won't always have a hotel with broadband/wifi to rely on - if at all !

Any ideas doubly welcome from me also...please !

[RawRob]

Depends what's in the emails. Some emails I get are as small as 1kb, while others are much, much more.

I could get a sim card from out there which should work out a lot cheaper but apparently the connections are pretty poor.

Surely even if you use your UK sim you will still be connecting to the local service providers, so if the connections are poor then the connection on your UK sim would also be poor?

Rob

[andysv1k]

Firstly can you set your email program to download only headers, that way you will cut down the bandwidth used by loads, then only choosing to fully download the emails you really want and ignore the rest.

Im using thunderbird and with the emails i get, i preview them but i click a button if i want it to download all the images in the email, useful when i get loads of marketing spam that is very graphical.

Andy.

[DGLM]

Would it be possible to get a PAYG sim in pakistan?

[Fuzzy]

Haven't a clue, but hope you have a great time