The first time I downloaded email via cell phone modem, it was a bad experience. We've learned some things since then.

How It Works

From what I've read, I understand cell phone technology in European countries is much more advanced than in the United States.

In the United States, using a cell phone as a modem is new technology. First, you load special software into your computer. To access the Internet, plug the cell phone into your computer with a special cable and click a button. (Mac users may need an additional cable; ask the cell phone provider.)

It's not actually a "cell phone modem." I've titled this article the way I have because the modem inside the laptop is bypassed and the cell phone is used instead. The modem is actually located with and operated by the cell phone provider. It is this central modem that the laptop exchanges information with, via the cell phone.

Finding It

There may be less than half a dozen cell phone providers in the United States with a service area sufficient for traveling. Also, not all cell phone providers offer "cell phone modem" technology. Ask before you sign a service contract.

Note: The "cell phone modem" technology I'm talking about here is not wireless email or wireless internet where the emails or web pages are presented in the cell phone itself. Rather, it is technology where you can use your own computer and your own email and browser software.

Computer stores in your area may be able to tell you which cell phone providers offer the technology. Or, consult the yellow pages and make some calls. We surfed the Internet and made our decision based on what we learned there.

Getting It

In the United States, a person contracts for a certain number of minutes per month under one of the plans offered by the provider.

Generally, the number of daytime minutes is a small fraction of the number of weekend and nighttime minutes. Daytime minutes are counted during specific daytime periods, nighttime and weekend minutes during specific nighttime periods and weekends.

If you use less minutes than you've contracted for, you pay for them anyway. If you use more, you pay for the extra minutes at what can seem to be exorbitant rates. If you go outside the contracted provider's service area and use other provider's towers (called "roaming"), you may pay even more for every minute used.

I expect the above paragraph to quickly date this article. Competition for customers is fierce. The distinction between daytime and nighttime/weekend time periods might be eliminated. Contracting for unlimited number of minutes may become commonplace. Roaming charges might be eliminated, too, after competing providers agree to service each other's customers with joint venture agreements.

Today, however, things are restrictive.

My First Time

The first time I downloaded email via cell phone modem, I was dismayed at how very slow it was. During the download, I tensed up, visualizing the available minutes quickly diminishing from our account. It took over 15 minutes to download a few less than 200 emails. A full 90% of those emails turned out to be spam. It was a bad experience for my mental composure.

Clearly, something had to be done.

What We Did

Giving up was not an option. Mari and I had long dreamed of successfully running our Internet business from an RV. When we purchased our motorhome, it was with that in mind. Somehow, it would work.

• The first thing we did was create an additional mailbox on the server.

  We have a lot of email addresses for our various sites. Most collect spam. We redirected many of those email addresses to the additional mailbox. The contents of that mailbox stay on the server unless something comes up requiring its download.

  (This happened recently. There was a question about a subscription, and I needed a copy of the subscription email in order to answer the question. In that case, the additional mailbox could have been compressed into a ZIP file on the server and the smaller file size downloaded. However, because I knew the exact address that had been subscribed, I make a quick little program to extract the email in question and save it to a separate file for downloading.)

• The next thing was to determine which email addresses we no longer needed and remove them from the server. Most addresses were receiving the same spam, so we knew the more we could eliminate, the more spam would find no destination. And the less spam, the less our cost.

• We also set our email programs to skip the download of any email larger than a certain size. This leaves much of the larger spam emails on the server and almost all attachments (most attachments are larger than the size we have specified).

  The email program gives us a short notice when something is left on the server, and we have the option of overriding the size restriction for that particular email before it's automatically deleted from the server.

  (We use Eudora for email programs.)

• One thing still to be done is to install .procmail on the server.

  With .procmail, I can kill or return to sender anything with more than two or three destination addresses, anything without one of our valid email addresses in the To: line (with exceptions for those few ezines we subscribe to that put a list address in the To: line), and any HTML email (with exceptions for pre-approved senders). The HTML email will probably be returned to sender with a request to resend as plain text or to a special, temporary email address.

  Those three filters might eliminate half or more of the spam we still receive. And .procmail can do many more types of filters.

• Some folks recommend programs to filter email by content, like Spam Assassin, but we run a business and can ill afford the loss of valid business communication from the many false positives I understand can occur with filters of that kind.

  (Almost everyone who has written to us wondering why they no longer receive WillMaster Possibilities had simply lost every emailed issue to false positive filtering by their own filtering program or their ISP's. I always wonder what other email they lose -- invoices, family communication, lost loves trying to reconnect -- who can tell; if it's not seen it's usually not missed.)

What We Do

We surf with images turned off. If we need to see an image, we selectively download the image we require.

Note: If you use images for navigation links, people with slow connections or who pay by the minute appreciate it very much when you put an indication of the link's destination in the image's alt tag.)

We do as much as possible off-line.

When we download email, we disconnect as soon as it's done. After the emails are answered, we re-connect to send them.

When we browse, we go directly to our destination. Often, we disconnect once the page is loaded and read it off-line.

I have a server on my laptop. This means I can do most of my software development off-line. (The "CGI Developer's Tools" article linked from http://willmaster.com/a/16/pl.pl?archives talks about server and Perl software for Win-PC computers.)

Weaning Ourselves

It's been hard, weaning ourselves. Before moving into the RV, we were used to being connected many hours at a time, surfing at leisure. Not so with a cell phone modem. Even if we stayed connected to the Internet as much as we were used to, the slowness of the connection could quickly make it a frustrating experience.

Alternatives

There are alternatives.

1. If we had an ISP with local dialup numbers wherever we decide to stay, and we stayed in one location for some weeks, we could have a land line telephone hooked up for regular modem use.

2. We could invest in mobile Internet satellite which, theoretically, would let us connect to the Internet from anywhere, at high speed.

Cell phone modem limits the geographical areas where we can take our business. Unless we stay within the provider's service area, roaming charges accumulate. We'll probably try both of the above alternatives, and maybe others as they present themselves. Once we've done so, I'll write about the experience.

By: Will Bontrager

Copyright 2002 Bontrager Connection, LLC
http://willmaster.com/possibilities/
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