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Mobile phone coverage spots in remote areas like Western Australia’s Kimberley region are few and far between for Telstra NextG customers, and mostly non-existent for Optus and Vodafone. So the only way you can regularly make contact with family, friends and work colleagues is to use satellite-based communication systems. As luck would have it the relentless technology trend of smaller, cheaper, better devices has worked its magic well in this area of gadgets. The SPOT 2 Satellite GPS Messenger and Inmarsat iSatphone Pro reviewed here work not only in Australia but across large parts of the world at no extra cost.

Location-based services like Foursquare aren’t particularly high on my radar. Anyone who publishes daily Facebook/Twitter status updates like “9am: I’m at work” and “5pm: going home” is swiftly unfollowed and earmarked as the dissemination of boring ‘Captain Obvious’ information. But I spied an opportunity for some real location-based tech testing when I headed to the Kimberley in the north of Western Australia for a photographic expedition.

Could I usefully stay ‘on grid’ in one of the world’s most isolated regions? I turned to satellite technology. But if like me your preconceptions about satellite phones involve large brick-sized communication devices and call costs of several dollars per second, think again. I loaded up with the latest Inmarsat satphone and a more limited but perhaps less intrusive ‘messenger’ device.

I write short articles as well as long feature “explainer” articles on topics including: Google Android Smartphones and Tablets, National Broadband Network (NBN), Space, Civil & Military Aviation, Ebooks and the Publishing Industry, Electric cars, Technology augmenting human capabilities etc for Geare Magazine. The editor of GEARE has kindly permitted me to post articles here after the magazine issue the article was printed in has passed its shelf life. I have added updates where new information is relevant.

SPOT 2 Satellite GPS Messenger ($199 plus satellite and Google Maps subscription fees)

If you’re planning to get away from it all a satellite phone may be the last thing you want – particularly incoming communications so that anyone (such as your boss) can check up on you. I found the Spot 2 to be a near-perfect device in this regard – it provides an excellent balance between keeping friends and family up to date with your location and safety, while keeping you out of their personal loops.

The Spot 2 can be strapped onto your wrist while walking but I found that a rather chunky option for any length of time. Strapping it to cycle/motorbike handlebars or sticking it face up on a vehicle windscreen is much more practical. I tended to just turn it on and place it on a backpack, pointing face-up at the sky, checking in with an OK message and Google Maps location tracking signal. Once turned on, Spot 2 takes five to ten minutes to register with a satellite and send its message based on the button you press. To be certain, it’s best to leave it running for 20 minutes.

So, what can you do with it? The Spot 2 offers five main functions:

1. SOS – This immediately alerts emergency services of your location in case of a life-threatening or other critical emergency. The GEOS International Emergency Response Center alerts the appropriate agencies worldwide. The Spot 2 will send this SOS (with your GPS location) at five minute intervals until the batteries die, the company quoting 1350 transmissions (four and a half days) on a fresh battery.
2. Help message – For less critical emergencies, this sends a message to friends/family, and could be especially useful if you’re travelling in a group, or with a back-up team. Your GPS location is sent with the help message every five minutes for an hour, or until cancelled, and your contacts can receive either an SMS text message including coordinates, or an email with a link to Google Maps showing your precise location.
3. Custom message – Specific alerts, such as “vehicle mechanical problems” can be sent, or even a less urgent “Setting up camp for the night” message.
4. OK message – A ‘check-in’ SMS or email is sent to a predetermined list of up to 10 people, again sending your GPS location as an SMS or email link to Google Maps.
5. Track Progress – This function sends your current location to Spot, which then pinpoints it on a customised Google Map which connects all your ‘track progress’
   check-ins over time to show your path.

I checked in at 26 major points during the trip, generating the map shown above. Battery life is good – the three lithium-ion batteries which power Spot 2 should last for a three-week trip if it is transmitting eight hours a day.

Could you send an SOS by mistake? Nearly impossible I reckon – the buttons are all recessed and they only work when pressed for two or more seconds. And while there’s no display readout on the Spot, its current task is clearly indicated by flashing buttons and indicators.

I was so impressed with this useful and potentially disaster-averting device that I’d suggest any Australian going on a 4WD or caravan trip through areas without mobile coverage should consider taking a Spot 2 with them for personal safety. Even if no emergency arises, it can provide peace of mind for family and friends, while the optional Track Progress feature is very cool, and provides you with an accurate map trail showing exactly where you’ve been. Spot 2 costs AU$199 inc GST to buy, plus an additional US$115 a year for the basic satellite subscription and a further US$49.95 to enable the Track Progress Google-mapping feature.

Note: The Spot 2 unit I tested was borrowed from Australian retailer GPS OZ.

Inmarsat iSatphone Pro ($660 + usage fees)

Those preconceptions about giant satellite phones? Forget them. When I took Inmarsat’s latest iSatphone Pro out of its box, it was comparable in size and weight to a cordless phone from a few years ago (rather than the decade I was expecting). Inmarsat told me that the call costs are 75c+GST/minute, so that with the handset at $660 the cost overall compares pretty well to a mid-to-high level smartphone on a prepaid phone plan.

Yet when you’re heading way out of town, if there’s a strong likelihood of weather, or of vehicle difficulties on your holiday drive, or if you’re cursed with the need to be in contact with work at all times, a conventional phone is likely to be completely useless. A satellite phone is the best option, and Inmarsat’s iSatPhonePro leads the pack with its long battery life, rugged construction and affordability. It has an intuitive GSMstyle interface and a high-visibility colour screen, while its relatively large keypad makes for easy dialling even with gloves on.

The iSatphone Pro is also the only global handheld satellite phone to support Bluetooth. You can place the handset on its side, with full manoeuvrability of the antenna for handsfree use.

Those call rates, by the way, are the same regardless of your country or connection. So you’d actually save money using the Inmarsat’s iSatPhonePro service overseas compared to using mobile phone global roaming!

To make a satellite phone call you have to follow a specific procedure. First you turn the phone on and swing out the large antenna. Then stand in a place with a clear view of the sky, and turn around slowly until you find out which direction the satellite is in, by watching the signal strength meter. Once the signal is strong enough the phone will register with the Inmarsat network and be ready to make a call, send an SMS etc.

That network operates over global geostationary satellites that are assured to be operational into the 2020s, so you might expect the phone’s satellite coverage would be, well, everywhere, at least outside. In fact some patience is required. Finding a signal and registering can take several minutes – longer if you have to walk/drive somewhere to find a clearer line of sight to the satellite overhead. Even being beneath a big leafy tree, let alone sitting at the bottom of a gorge or canyon, was enough to restrict line-of-sight communication with the satellite network.

But once registered and connected operation was simple. There was a slight latency on calls to Sydney in the far corner of Australia, the delays inherent in satellite communication meaning that conversations could be a bit disjointed unless you’re calling someone used to satphone or overseas conversations. But call quality was good, with a random bit of digital noise every now and then – comparable with an OK mobile call. Those on the other end such as friends and family in Sydney reported good reception at the other end.

Specifications
Capabilities: Satellite telephony, voicemail, text and email messaging, GPS location data
Battery life: Longest battery life in its class: up to 8 hours talk time and up to 100 hours standby time.
Robust: Also the most robust handset in its class. It can operate at temperatures from -20°C to +55°C; it’s dust, splash and shock-resistant (IP54), with humidity tolerance from 0-95%.

The iSatPhone I tested was borrowed from Inmarsat.

This article was originally published in GEARE Magazine issue #67. It is “digitally reprinted” here with permission from the editor. I have added updates where new information is relevant.

Visit the Rambling Thoughts Blog regularly to read articles about Technology, Personal Finance, TV Shows, Politics, Environment, Books and more

Republishing in full not allowed without permission.. Source: bhatt.id.au/blog/

Bluetooth earpieces come in many shapes, sizes and colours, most of which leave you looking like a lame call-centre operative who has wandered into the street to carry on a conversation. In this respect the Jabra Stone 2 really stands out.

With its unique shape and charging mechanism, it’s the first of its kind that I felt comfortable using while walking around in public. Indeed I was surprised at the number of times people asked what it was, so they could buy one. One person even said “you look like a West Wing operative”. One aspect that helps is that it has a black colour and my hair is black so that means it stands out much less than a colourful or shiny Bluetooth ear piece.

I write short articles as well as long feature “explainer” articles on topics including: Google Android Smartphones and Tablets, National Broadband Network (NBN), Space, Civil & Military Aviation, Ebooks and the Publishing Industry, Electric cars, Technology augmenting human capabilities etc for Geare Magazine. The editor of GEARE has kindly permitted me to post articles here after the magazine issue the article was printed in has passed its shelf life. I have added updates where new information is relevant.

The ‘Stone’ itself is the small recharger unit into which the minimalist curved earpiece neatly slots; the Stone itself can be charged from USB so it will deliver up to eight hours recharge on the move. Part of the Stone 2’s trademark curve hooks around your earlobe, and I successfully paired it with the several phones we tried, enjoying excellent performance in both directions.

It achieved conversational cut-through while walking along busy Sydney streets with lots of ambient noise, even staying clear both ways at a very noisy election night event. Some reviewers in the USA have complained about average audio quality, but I suspect this is largely mobile carrier related. For example my testing showed audio quality to be significantly better with mobile phones on the Telstra NextG network than on Optus or Vodafone.

So far so good. But how about voice command, one of the hardest things for any product to get right. The Stone 2 was indeed less than perfect here. Voice commands for ‘answer’ and ‘ignore’ only worked sometimes – it was more reliable to press the earpiece to do this. But voice status updates such as “battery level high/low” and “incoming call from 0412345678” were reliable.

Battery life was often frustrating. It’s quoted at two hours talk-time without a recharge but I reckon it’s about an hour and a half tops. This means you need to take the charger Stone with you – and won’t be able to use the earpiece for 20 minutes each time you need that rejuice of charge. Standby talk-time (including Stone recharges) is quoted as up to 15 days. Left-handed people are also out of luck, because the earpiece is unavoidably asymmetric – it’s designed to be used only in the right ear.

If the trends mentioned in my Augmented Humanity story continue, perhaps the Jabra Stone 5 or 6 might recharge directly from the electricity generated by your body.

Battery life and voice commands aside, the Stone 2 distinguishes itself on both operation and design – a cool Bluetooth earpiece that performs well. The Jabra Stone 2 retails for between $100-$150. At time of writing Techbuy sells the Jabra Stone 2 for $102.10.

Note that the Stone 2 review unit was provided for review by Jabra to me as well as lots of other journalists who cover the smartphone/mobile device area.

This article was originally published in GEARE Magazine issue #66. It is “digitally reprinted” here with permission from the editor. I have added updates where new information is relevant.

Visit the Rambling Thoughts Blog regularly to read articles about Technology, Personal Finance, TV Shows, Politics, Environment, Books and more

Republishing in full not allowed without permission.. Source: bhatt.id.au/blog/

The falling cost of satellite phones and GPS tracker devices is making it easier for travellers to places off the beaten track to call, SMS, tweet and facebook their friends and family about their trip as well as contacting emergency services if they get into trouble.

However this raises a troubling question. If the purpose of going to remote places is to be far from the maddening crowds and noise of city life does the availability of affordable communications technologies to adventurers on our largest oceans, most arid deserts and highest mountains mean there is nowhere left on Earth where we can relax in quiet solitude?

I’m not the only one pondering this issue as I discovered when reading a blog post by William Levins:

“So now you can climb to the top of the world…and still get a telephone call. Wow. This is a wonderful use of technology…and an abysmal failure too. Of course, if you’re a lost or trapped climber…then having the ability to make a cell phone call for help…well that’s terrific … But the opposite is true. The majestic peak of Mount Everest is now no longer a refuge from today’s modern world. Yup, you could climb for weeks, be one of a few thousand to reach the summit…and as you marvel at the expanse of the world before your eyes….ring, ring…you’d get a call. Seems to taint the experience a bit”.

For people who live and work in remote areas like the Kimberley in Western Australia (WA) these same technologies enable them to communicate more easily, often at a far lower cost than before, with the rest of the country and the world.

I recently took a roadtrip through the Kimberley in order to do a number of photography jobs for Adventure Wild and Tourism WA. I took 3 different communications devices with me to see how they performed in the heat and dust of Australia’s remote North West frontier. The trio was made up of:

• Motorola Atrix – Google Android phone using Telstra’s NextG mobile network,
• Spot v2 Satellite GPS messenger – lent by GPS OZ,
• iSatphone Pro satellite phone – lent by Inmarsat.

It’s common to hear complaints of small mobile phone reception blackspots in big cities like Sydney and Melbourne at a particular train station or street making it hard to call or access the internet but readers outside Australian cities will laugh because they have real blackspots 10’s or 100’s of km in radius.

Telstra NextG is Australia’s biggest mobile network, “twice as large as any other 3G network in Australia [and] covers 99% of the population” but even that leaves vast regions of Australia’s rural and outback regions without any conventional mobile coverage. As you can see most of Telstra’s NextG coverage in Northern WA is around larger towns like Broome, Kununurra and major mining sites. Travellers in my group with Optus and Vodafone were left “in the dust” with barely any coverage once we left Broome.

As an example one of my friends Robbo is a Remote Pharmacist. He told me that his work area in Western Australia covers “over 250,000sq kms and 11 communities. We have one community which has 3G coverage, 125km away from home”.

The difference between which mobile telecommunications provider they choose and whether they have a mobile internet signal or not can mean lost income for people in rural and regional areas who lack the 24/7 wired and wireless internet access we enjoy in cities.

As an example during the Kimberley roadtrip I was emailed by one of my editors to write an article, take appropriate accompanying photos and email these urgently within 48 hours. If I had any other mobile provider besides Telstra I wouldn’t have received this message and therefore would have lost several $100 in income.

Motorola Atrix Google Android Smartphone

Telstra award a “blue tick” logo to phones that provide better coverage in rural and regional Australia.

I had 2 phones with Telstra NextG SIM’s in my pocket. The Motorola Atrix is blue tick and my old Nokia 6120c isn’t but they are capable of getting similar signal strength. It’s worth researching 4WD and caravan user websites to see how phones perform in the outback before you buy one.

The Motorola Atrix performed well in terms of manufacturing quality because none of the fine red outback dust got in the phone during the three week trip and the toughened Corning Gorillaglass touchscreen didn’t shatter when it bumped against other objects.

As a smartphone the Atrix had a key advantage over the old Nokia because when I was in a town with a mobile signal I could use Google Android’s WiFi hotspot feature to connect the Atrix to my netbook computer, research information for stories I was writing during the trip, share photos on Flickr and check email. Working this way was a lot slower than using 3G mobile data in Sydney but still something to be very thankful for as the only viable internet option.

The Motorola Atrix can be purchased on various Telstra contract plans, outright from Telstra for $840 or a grey importer like Mobicity who sells NextG compatible Atrix’s sourced from the USA for $679.

Spot 2 Satellite GPS messenger

The Spot 2 Satellite GPS messenger is a relatively inexpensive device that has 5 features: SOS message to emergency services, Help message to friends/family, OK SMS/Email to a predetermined list of people, Custom message and Google Maps waypoint logging.

The Spot 2 unit itself costs $229 and needs a $US115/yr satellite service subscription to activate basic functions and an optional US$49.99/yr to activate Google Maps tracking.

People planning a 4WD exploration trip or travelling to a remote place on land should consider buying a Spot 2 as it provides more flexibility than an EPIRB beacon (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) which is only useful in emergency situations and can’t send reassuring location details to friends/family just to say where you are and that you’re OK.

Inmarsat iSatphone Pro satellite phone

Satellite phones are commonly used by travellers to remote places and the people who live there as the main method of phone communications. When Inmarsat sent me an iSatphone Pro satellite phone to borrow and review during my trip I was surprised at several aspects. I expected it to be big, heavy and thought the phone and usage costs would be quite expensive.

However surprisingly the phone handset is not huge, comparable to an early generation cordless home phone and the cost of buying a iSatPhone Pro in Australia at $599+GST plus call costs @ 75c+GST/min (regardless of country/phone type) is quite comparable to the cost of buying a mid-high end 3G smartphone on a prepaid account.

I found calls to landlines were more reliable and had better audio quality than calls to mobile phones. Bear in mind that your voice is travelling from the ground, up to a satellite, down to the ground again and routed to your destination number so there is inevitably some lag delay time between saying something and the person you’re calling hearing your voice.

Visit the Rambling Thoughts Blog regularly to read articles about Technology, Personal Finance, TV Shows, Politics, Environment, Books and more

Republishing in full not allowed without permission.. Source: bhatt.id.au/blog/

We always knew it would be quick when the Androids landed. Google’s operating system for mobile devices was officially launched just over 3 years ago, but is already outselling all others in some markets thanks to a variety of manufacturers, prices and implementations. Are these the droids we are looking for…

I write short articles as well as long feature “explainer” articles on topics including: Smartphones and Tablets, National Broadband Network (NBN), Space, Civil & Military Aviation, Ebooks and the Publishing Industry, Electric Cars, Technology augmenting human capabilities etc for Geare Magazine. The editor of GEARE has kindly permitted me to post articles here after the magazine issue the article was printed in has passed its shelf life.

Some time in 2011 year, the number of smartphones being sold in Australia will likely top the number of basic feature phones. And while the iPhone leads these sales as a single product, Android is catching up fast. In the US there are already more Android phones being sold than either iPhones or BlackBerry models, according to NPD Group figures for the second quarter of 2010.

Yet only five years ago the established phone manufacturers were still smirking in their saunas at the notion of computer companies competing against their firmly entrenched and feature-filled phone market.

Apple knows nothing about phones, they said. As for Google, it was a search engine with a sideline in online ads.

Yet even then, two years before the launch of the first iPhone, Google was already in the game. Most people probably don’t know that the genesis for Android was outside Google itself — Google purchased the startup ‘Android Inc’ in mid-2005. In an article at the time, Businessweek presciently predicted that Android Inc was “working on a software operating system for cell phones”.

Android was no overnight success. It took almost four years before the first Android phone, the qwerty slider HTC Dream (marketed as the T-Mobile G1 in the USA) was available for purchase.

The HTC Dream was an ugly but functional phone, and its operating system, Android 1.1, was very rough in places. It didn’t help that Optus was the first Australian mobile carrier to sell Android phones in Australia, and it was exceptionally slow at releasing firmware updates for the HTC Dream, not to mention intransigently blocking access to paid apps in the Android Market for a year.

Still, the HTC Dream did provide a glimpse of what was possible in the future. Early Android adopters were rewarded with useful features that the Apple iPhone lacked, such as contacts, email and your calendar stored in the ‘cloud’ for free (Apple charges AUS$119/year for it’s similar Mobile Me service). There were multiple customisable home screens, information widgets, and true background multi-tasking (e.g. Twitter, push email, GPS tracking).

Since then fast iterative improvements and regular updated versions of Android have helped the operating system to meet the needs of its users, and eventually mainstream interest in Android picked up, with the Motorola DROID notching up impressive sales in the USA from late 2009 and the May 2010 HTC Desire launch by Telstra in Australia.

Android “Flavours” aka Version Fragmentation

At the same time, however, there has been fragmentation. In late 2010 there were phones being sold by carriers in Australia with Android versions varying from 1.5 through 1.6 and 2.1 to 2.2.

For Google, the ultimate goal for Android is to enable mobile and tablet owners to use the internet more, in the hope that this will inevitably lead them to more Google services and thereby raise revenue for the company. But the actual design and manufacturing of the phones is left largely to members of the Open Handset Alliance, such as Motorola, HTC and their mobile carrier partners in major economies like the USA and UK.

Unfortunately, rather than shipping with the version directly from Google, handset makers in the Open Handset Alliance often decide to overlay their own company user interface (UI) layer on Android phones. It’s similar to the way companies like Dell, HP and others have a habit of loading autostarting bloatware onto their consumer PCs and laptops. Some of it might be useful, some of it almost certainly won’t be, and any of it can affect performance basics.

HTC’s Sense is currently the best of these proprietary UIs, followed by a decent but patchy effort from Sony Ericcson (with their Timescape and Mediscape applications), and distantly followed by the woeful MOTOBLUR used by Motorola in its mid-level and budget Android handsets.

Moving forward

So, might Android evolve too fast without proper planning and collapse in a big green heap? Or will it become the de facto mass market smartphone operating system, leaving the iPhone to dominate the high-end luxury market?

As we’ve seen, five years can be a long time in a high technology market like this. But with more than 10 million Android devices being activated by customers every month around the world (as at Feb 2011) and new fast dual core CPU Android phones and Android Tablets as a sign of things to come, things are looking good for Android’s ongoing development.

Before You Buy An Android Phone or Tablet

Before you buy If you’re thinking of buying an Android phone, there are a few key things to bear in mind.

Avoid buying a phone with a version of Android that’s more than one version behind the current release. It restricts your ability to use the latest Android apps.

Don’t leap into the first contract you find. Make sure you’re awareof all your options, including those besides the traditional two-year contract with Telstra, Optus, Vodafone or 3. Many savvy Australian fans of Android have bought their new phones before the official Australian launch, from American or European stock sold by Clove and Handtec, or from Australian importer Mobicity.

Also reject any Android phone or tablet that has an old single touch resistive screen. Resistive screens have a much inferior user experience and are holdovers from the days when mobile phones used a stylus for user input. Make sure your new phone or tablet has a capacitative screen.

This article was originally published in GEARE Magazine issue #63. It is “digitally reprinted” here with permission from the editor.

Visit the Rambling Thoughts Blog regularly to read articles about Technology, Personal Finance, TV Shows, Politics, Environment, Books and more