Spot 4

Have just bought a laptop to try and retain some sanity whilst on all too frequent dets at home and abroad. As this is unchartered waters for me, can someone who has been here before tel me the following:

Can you access a freephone telephone number via GPTN.

I believe that a comma included in the connect number provides a time delay between dialed numbers, can this be used for a chargecard via ext 144 if the above is "No".

Apart from hogging a MOD Tel extn, are either of the above likely to get a visit from the fun police.

Tech details are: Subscribed to BT Anytime with a no cost access number.

Thanks in advance & Happy Christmas.

Hopefully whilst on duty New years Eve away from family, friends and all that is fun I will at least be able to surf. Must change the handle to Spot 7!

Green Bottle 2

S4,

Don't know about the freephone no but you may be able to if the phone has 0 level access.

You are correct about the comma and using BT chargecard may be a way.

Don't see why the police should object. Suggest a discrete call to your DATO office on stn.

When abroad, freephone no's may not work. Some providers have a roaming system. This involves dialing a local number for internet access. The costs vary from country to country - have a look on the BT website.

I managed some success in Bosnia dialing a UK access number through a mobile. Data rate very low 9600 baud as opposed to 56000 on normal telephone and v expensive! Only did it as an experiment.

Hope this helps a little.

GB

Stan Bydike

I think you will find that your BT Anytime is actually linked to the number, presumably home, that is registered for Anytime.

Consequently, dialling in from a different number may not work, or if it does cost an arm and a leg. Then the fun police will really arrive

BEagle

If you have access to a commercial phone line, then you should be able to connect your laptop using a calling card with a connection program. I use 'Laptop Link' and a World Telecom calling card; however, it doesn't always work that easily. Alternatively, you might be able to use a commercial line 'directly' and pay for your connection time if you have some repayment system in place and are honest enough to record your calls. We had such a system in place in a certain theatre of operations and you just logged your calling time and were billed accordingly. But it connected at about 17K and cost nearly £2 per minute!

The only reliable method seems to be to connect using GSM - if it's available. Not in the sun-washed Islas Malvinas, of course. But GSM is very slow and horribly expensive - and it will be harmful to your blood pressure when you find your Inbox full of spam e-mails.......

Most of the 'unlimited' deals in the UK are indeed tied to your domestic line and you need to have CLI enabled to use them.

I suspect that if you tried to link your laptop to a military line (even via your own calling card), Plod would find some reason to say that it's contrary to some paranoid security rule.

The Yanks have had detachment Hotmail and free Internet readily available for years; regrettably the pornographic filth which some seem to wallow in on the Internet has caused even the US Armed Forces to think again and now many wholly legitimate Internet sites are barred - I couldn't even access the London Stock Exchange website as the dumb Spam computer wouldn't allow access to it - 'speculative investment' it said; I guess that meant they thought it was a gambling system?

What we really need is a system where you buy a block of time from a morale and welfare provider, plug your laptop in and connect to your own ISP. Can it really be that hard? If it's possible to get live colour TV back from Pluto, surely this isn't beyond the wit of man?

Guido

I have BTanytime and you can use it from any phone in the UK, providing that your home machine is not also logged on. If it is you get a snotogram from BT about multiple users and a threat to cancel your account if you persist.
Regarding GPTN and freephone access:
1. In the UK, you can get to any freephone number by adding another zero before the 0800, 0808, 0500 etc numbers and that will connect you. (However, you have to add another dial up connection to reflect this new number using your original user name and password ).
2. From overseas locations I'm not sure if it connects through GPTN.
3. Connection speeds are usually slow due to the nature of so many shared lines and distance from the main exchange.

Hope this helps!

soggyboxers

Spot 4 (or 7!),
I've found AOL to offer the best overseas connections. You can access a list of all the countries where it's possible to connect to it using a local number - although connection speeds are frequently very slow, so it may not be possible to use it for surfing the net. If you let me know which country you're going to I'll check on my AOL access numbers and let you know if they have a local access number where you're going. AOL can be used almost anywhere in Europe, but the Middle East is often a problem as the state telephone companies normally have a monopoly on all telecommunications services (so they can block access to any porn sites!!). AOL is usable in many African countries, though sometimes connections are rather poor. I usually find it's pretty cheap just to sign on for an account with a local ISP and then I just use hotmail or yahoo so I don't need to keep changing my e-mail address every time I go to a new country. Even then, there is a service available which will forward your e-mails for you to your normal e-mail address. You will often have to pay to access any of these overseas numbers, but that's not normally a problem if you use them only for e-mails. The other alternative is to visit internet cafes for your surfing. I'll be away in Africa for Christmas and only able to use the internet for e-mail so I know how you feel.

Specaircrew

If you use an ISP with global roaming access then you'll be able to access the Internet for the cost of a local call in a lot of countries. If you're detached for any length of time it's often easier to open an account with a local ISP. Ideally you should consider getting your own domain name then your email address will always be the same no matter which ISP you're using.

A lot of ISPs let you check your mail via a web based site when you're travelling, avoid Hotmail as it's barred from most US military welfare computers.

Check out www.gric.com/network/isp_locator.html

Guern

One method which would allow you to use same email address all the time but still use whichever local free ISP you like is to use someone like www.123reg.co.uk to register a domain, they vary in price but the cheapest is .co.uk for £2.89 per year. You can manage your domain on the net and can set e-mail forwarding for up to 100 email adresses at your domain to forward email sent to your domain to any other email account you wish, all included in the price!

I have used this service for some time now as free isp's come and go and I got fed up of advising everyone of my change of e-mail address.

Hope this helps.

fobotcso

Some useful stuff from you guys who are "on the road" more than most. But a parallel thread is running down on the Internet Forum and you may like a "heads-up" on the modem burn-out possibility.

Go here:E-mail access "on-the-road"

European Crash

Solution: Go to a det where the Americans are present. Thier NIPRNet system gives you virtual web and email facilities (subject to scrutiny by cyber police). If you don't have access to US NIPRNet, just raid their MWR facilities - they practically ooze free internet terminals.

Oh, one small problem - if you are working with our trans-Atlantic Cousins, it probably means that you are somewhere pretty inhospitable.