An excellent article on wireless in Trinidad & Tobago By Jim Geier Courtesy of Network Computing
As much as it irks me to say it, after reading this, it seems our gsm/gprs coverage isn't half bad after all!
March 30, 2005
Roaming: Better Wireless Than Expected In Trinidad
The Mobile Observer
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For this expedition, I went armed with a laptop equipped with Wi-Fi and a BlackBerry 7230. As with all my travels, I needed to keep up with my business and family as well as communicate with people in the local area.
While on the plane heading down there, it would have been nice to have Internet access onboard the relatively long flight. I believe that this will eventually come to all airlines, however. In fact, Germany's Lufthansa airline recently expanded its service on international flights. Other airlines are beginning to follow with similar service.
Similar to my experiences in other overseas places, there were no data ports on the phones at my hotel. Internet cafes were available in the semi-local area, but they were difficult to reach because of the need for a taxi and the very heavy traffic in the local area. A citywide Wi-Fi service would have come in handy to interface my laptop with the Internet.
In the United States, many cities are deploying metropolitan area Wi-Fi networks. In fact, Chicago recently threw its name into the hat. In Trinidad, around the Port of Spain and its surrounding towns, a nearby mountain range is a perfect vantage point for illuminating much of the area, which consists primarily of single-story buildings, with Wi-Fi service. But I'm not sure if that will ever happen.
To my great surprise, GSM and GPRS coverage in the populated areas of Trinidad is very good. Even though T-Mobile reported coverage in those areas, I still had doubts that it would be usable. I was pleasantly surprised to have consistently stronger signals in Trinidad than I do in my home area of Dayton, Ohio.
This allowed the convenient use of my BlackBerry device to send and receive e-mails, and I had no problems keeping up with business e-mails. I also chatted with my wife and kids back home by sending instant messages to their phones throughout the day. It's a really nice way to soften the hardships of being away from family when traveling on business. This is something that doesn't get much press, but it's extremely beneficial.
One problem I ran into was the difficulty of sending documents via e-mail. A link between my smartphone and laptop, possibly Bluetooth, would have been nice to solve this issue. Unfortunately, I wasn't equipped for that. I noticed that some of my students were using GPRS cards for sending and receiving e-mail directly from their laptops, though. I'm now thinking of investing in one of those to make traveling easier.
Because of roaming charges ($3 per minute), my cell phone was very expensive to use. I'm glad I checked the price before leaving home; otherwise, I would have had a big surprise on my next phone bill. In addition, my phone wouldn't ring when other people called me, so I found it basically useless, except when I needed to reach someone urgently. This situation certainly provides a good basis for using VOIP to make telephone calls to reduce costs and improve usability.
When leaving Trinidad, in the departure gates of the international terminal at the airport, I saw a large banner advertising Wi-Fi service in the gate area. For me, that was a nice touch after spending time in a relatively remote place. I could finally synchronize e-mails on my laptop and send some large documents.
In the future, places like Trinidad may eventually have Wi-Fi in more public places. For now, though, GSM and GPRS seem to be doing a good job of enabling effective mobile computing.
Jim Geier is the principal of Wireless-Nets Ltd., a consulting firm assisting companies with the implementation of wireless mobile solutions and training. Read more analysis from Jim on his Wireless LAN Blog. Contact him at jimgeier@wireless-nets.com.
