By Mel Chaney
In the last article, I promised to discuss wireless, radio communications. What we found is quite interesting and promises to be a real asset for RVers who wish to stay in touch with their friends, family, campgrounds, investments and businesses. There is an entire suite of offerings that start off with a small radio transmitter and a Worldwide network called the RAM Net which is operational in 14 Countries, the U.S., Canada and Mexico being the only ones of any interest to North American RVers. RVers in Europe, Great Britain, Australia, the Middle East, South America and parts of Asia and Malaysia can also take advantage of this system. Think of RAM as a new and different type of ATT, ITT or GTE without cellular roaming, connect time or long distance charges.
The radio modem is manufactured by US Robotics, a division of 3COM, in the form of a PCMCIA, type 2 credit card modem called an Allpoints Wireless Modem for use in laptop computers. There is a module with a collapsible antenna attached to the card modem that protrudes on the outside of the PC. It holds a 9 volt battery, occupying most of the protruding module. The modem is delivered with many different ISP providers software and a chargeable and non chargeable battery. To learn more about the wireless modem log on to the 3COM site www.3com.com or call 1-800-LAPTOPS, Ext. 4026. Initially, the non-chargeable battery is used to install the desired software and tailor the AllPoints modem to your wants, one of which is the amount of electrical charge you wish your PC to provide to the chargeable radio battery. Once you've reached this point, the chargeable battery is inserted, never to be replaced again. There are power saving methods in the software insuring that the PC batteries will be depleted before those of the radio.
Before discussing the offerings of the RAM network, we need to address the US Robotics Allpoints wireless modem and how versatile it is. It operates at 9600 bits per second which is 1200 characters per second, the same speed as cellular phones, and is quite sufficient for Email and very casual browsing. The 3COM home site WEB page has download flash modules that can change the modem to work in Canada or to be an Apple, Macintosh compatible device or both. In theory, one could simply download the software and flash upgrade the modem to Canadian operation before crossing over the border. The same is true coming back into the U.S. or entering or leaving Mexico, because the frequency allocations of the Countries are different. Another highly commercial radio based network is called CDPD and was designed by ATT. It has rather good commercial rates. In the future, the private rate structure is supposed to be available but for now CDPD is under an unregulated, commercial tariff and those commercial users try to resell the service after adding on their significant profits and cost.
When installing the modem software, it automatically installs access to the RAM provider GoAmerica, whether or not you wish to subscribe to their services. GoAmerica is nothing more than one of many RAM providers. Think of these RAM providers as something like a standard ISP provider such as AOL, CompuServ, Concentric.net or others we are more accustomed to, except the system is radio based rather than ATT telephone wired or cellular. Their servers are also connected to the World Wide Web so you can send or receive Email to/from anyone, anywhere. There is no RAM radio user to radio user communications. The provided software comes with many diskettes offering many subscribers. Some of the others are ZAP-IT, Focal Point, LocusOne, RadioMail and WyndMail. Both GoAmerica and ZAP-IT provided a free 2 week trial. When you first activate the Allpoints software, with the modem installed, it brings up Netscape (provided and installed with the modem installation if you want it) and connects you to the home page of GoAmerica. It guides you through the set up of a 2 week free test account. GoAmerica offers almost anything a standard land line based Internet provider would. Included are the usual Email and browser functions, but it disables automatic download of graphics. Thus, the high data volume of graphics is not transmitted, only the text is. We eventually decided against keeping the GoAmerica service because of its relatively high cost, for the way we would tend to use it.
ZAP-IT proved to be a most useful service, although they don't yet provide software for MAC users, which is a bit of a turn off for me because I am trying to assist all RVers Computing on the Road. Wyndmail at www.pdantic.com provides almost exactly the same provisions as ZAP-IT for MAC and other operating systems, including Newton. MAC users should continue to read on and equate what is explained below to Wyndmail. Both ZAP-IT and Wyndmail are complete communications solutions. These Personal Communications Services (PCS) totally integrate ones Email, Voice Mail, FAX and Paging Services into one system provider. You will be assigned your own private 888 (free dial) number, which you tailor like an answering machine with your own voice. People call the number, leave a message and the system sends you a short Email, letting you know you have voice mail. RadioMail provides much of the same services for MAC and other platforms, but because of relatively high advertised cost, I did little further research into their offerings. If you wish to find out more about them they can be found on the net at www.radiomail.net or call them at 1-800-597-6245.
Getting back to Zap-It and its MAC equivalent, WyndMail the telephone caller can also select another option, putting them in touch with a human operator who types their Email message and sends it to you. The operator is assisted with a voice to text data transcriber program, which is edited before sending the Email. In the opposite direction, I can send an Email to anyone with a telephone (no computer). It will dial the number and synthesize the data into voice (not mine) and deliver the message. It will try many times to get the message through, even to an answering machine. If it gets an answering machine it will tell you it delivered the message but cannot confirm your party is aware of it. If answered directly by your desired party, it sends a short Email message confirming the delivery of the message. You could even enter into a dialog in this manner, with the understanding that only one person can be sending at any time and the receiver needs to initiate a new transaction to reply.
The Email side of the provider is similar to any you have seen from land line based ISPs with the typical send and receive box, an address book selection and the ability to move messages into and out of other user defined folders. On the top, there are numerous ICONS that most would be familiar with if they have ever used Email, with two special ICONS on the top. One turns on the radio, which once clicked on, attempts to find a station to communicate with. Once it finds one, it checks to see if you have any messages and downloads them before sending out any messages you may have queued for sending. This is not a browser enabled provider. However, if you know the WEB page address you wish to access, it can download a single page at a time in text only, including financial services, but WyndMail does a better job and has direct purposeful access to financial systems.
Consider that this network was principally designed to work in urban areas and claims to cover 93% of the U.S. urban area. It has large overlaps into rural areas which spans up to 35 miles from the urban based transmitter site. To get an idea of coverage, log on to www.ram.com and you will be guided through coverage maps whereby you select the state and closest cities. From those maps you can see if you can expect to have Radio coverage before you travel to that destination. There are three types of antennas you can use. The smallest comes with the wireless modem and extends to about 4.5 inches. The next step up antenna replaces the original one and is a rubber like antenna about 8 inches long which we use. The most powerful antenna, one that mounts on a magnetic base, is meant to be placed on top of a metallic automobile rooftop. In cases where you don't have coverage, there is an ICON that selects your regular modem and dials a no cost 800 number to give one the same services as if the radio was in contact with a RAM station. It gives us the best of both worlds. Either the radio modem or regular modem, with or without the use of an acoustic coupler, can be used.
We did not test or use the paging services, because we have little use for paging, but understand it works like any other digital pager service. The FAX services are fantastic. Before this adventure, I never used PC based FAX. Now it is a breeze. One goes to a regular FAX machine and sends in the cover or font pages along with any graphics and signatures you like. Up to 5 of these fonts can be sent without incurring additional charges. You identity the fonts or cover pages from 1 to 5 as they are sent to your own personal 888 number. After that, when you wish to send a FAX you simply click on the address (like an address book entry), identify the font you want and select the text only file(s) in your PC you want to attach as additional pages. If you need more font or cover pages they come in sets of about 20 more for a minimal extra monthly charge. Believe me, if you really need 25 fonts, each having endless telephone number calling capabilities, you will gladly pay the rather insignificant difference. It is a truly painless FAX system that really works. The uses for business or personal communications to FAX is almost limitless. Many campgrounds have FAX machines but no provision for Internet access reservations or questions and answers. This could go a long way to solving our RV communications problems, at absolutely minimal cost to you and none to your recipient. They can confirm the reservations or answer your questions by calling your private 888 number via voice mail or send an Email at no cost to them.
Lets talk about the realistic costs. GoAmerica requires you to bring your wallet or purse as the case may be, but they were the only show on the road I found that offered true but text only browsing. Their charges for browsing and data transmission was relatively high. On the otherhand, ZAP-IT had 5 plans, all based on what they call a message unit or (MU). A ZAP-IT message unit is 500 characters long. For $19.95 you get a months usage of all the features and 50 message units (not much ). I took this plan. The other plans were cheaper per MU and allowed up to 500 MUs per month but required a year long contract. As I gain more experience, relative to our actual long term usage tendencies, I will enter into a long term contract with cheaper costs per MUs and many more MUs provided per month. With any contract offering one pays additionally for those MUs that are over and above the monthly quantity agreed upon. The initial $19.95 plan I chose can be canceled or upgraded anytime.
What is an MU good for? When using the radio, it is 500 bytes of data, one FAX page or one Email text, outbound to a private telephone number. When using a regular telephone modem it is one MU for the first 5000 characters and half an MU for each 5000 characters after that. Needless to say, unless you really need to use the radio, one either brings his/her fat wallet or uses a standard land line modem to an 800 number. However, it is really nice to be able to place a phone call message from your RV while traveling down the road and notify the campground staff with something like, "This is Mel & Susan Chaney. We have reservations for this afternoon but are running a bit late. We expect to arrive about 6:00 PM tonight." When they receive it you will get confirmation of the delivery over the system. If they have a FAX number listed I tend to send that rather than the synthesized voice. Both are impressive to campground staff and insures them you really intend to be there. In the event you need to cancel reservations in advance, FAX is an excellent method. If there is no FAX at the campground I would rather call in person rather than expose them to the rather mechanical sounding Email telephone system. On another note, it costs me only 40 cents ( 1 MU at the high rate contract I entered into) to send a message to our daughter and son-in-law (that have no computer), or Mom & Dad saying, "we have arrived in the Tim-Buck-Too Mississippi campground, as planned, and will check our voice mail beteen 7 and 9 PM daily when we can". With FAX, campgrounds can answer and call our 888 number and confirm our reservations, ask any questions they want, or deliver their terms of cancellation. Most of the time they just say thanks for letting us know we won't be there and no bill arrives for canceling, much in the same way and frequency you would expect if you called them personally.
There is another very important ICON on the top of the screen for setting up variable preferences. You can elect to preview any messages over whatever length you wish, say any message over 300 characters. You don't pay for previews. During the preview it tells you how large each message is. One can see who sent it, what type it is and the first 20 characters of the subject line. It doesn't take long to get your friends to simply send short 20 character messages in the subject area to avoid you downloading an MU. For message confirmations we simply delete them because we can see, on the subject line, all that is needed to determine what the message is stating.
You can also set the preferences to transfer all messages to another ISP provider or select only those over a whatever size you want to be forwarded, with or without a copy to ZAP-IT. When in doubt about RAM coverage in the area we are going to, we transfer our Email to our ISP concentric.net. before we leave a RAM covered area, because if we have to use payphones and an acoustic coupler one ISP is quite enough to deal with. You can only change preferences with the radio in contact with ZAP-IT. Only with the unique Worldwide number imbedded in the modem by the manufacturer and your password, can the system be certain it is indeed you making the preference changes. If when we arrive in the new location and find we have RAM coverage, we change the preferences to not forward Email. For forwarding Email and being able to send/receive other than text Email, we chose concentric.net as our regular wired ISP because of their many optional plans and the ability to send graphics or formatted messages. Remember, all of the RAM providers only allow unformatted text. We chose the $7.95 plan for 5 hours of browsing with the ability to use their 800 service for an additional charge of $5.00 for every hour. We call the 800 number for Email, giving us an hour a month for simple Email transfers which is quite sufficient. Should we go over the hour, another $5.00 would be billed, but that has not happened yet. Meanwhile, we've still got 5 hours of browsing time and the 50 MUs on the RAM network plus 800 dial to the ZAP-IT servers.
ZAP-it picks up all telephone charges, even for private long distance telephone calls from a synthesized voice message or people sending to you. For all of these different ISPs and their personalized services, I pay a total of $34.90 a month, but it doesn't end there. The really great thing about the RAM network is that there are no roaming or connect time charges, wherever I go. One can leave the system on 24 hours a day and set it up to chime or ring anytime there is activity on your account. Please don't try that with cellular phones because the bill for one day alone could be between $1,000.00 to $1,800.00 for connect and roaming time. There are no connect time or long distance charges for RAM, it is based only how much data you transfer. No, this degree of PCS service is not for everybody but I would gladly take it, cancel my regular ISP account to save the $12.95 a month it costs me and exclusively use ZAP-IT, at $19.95 a month without browsing, if it came to be a real financial burden. In the meantime, I continue to stay in effortless contact with friends and family and FAX outgoing registrations to campgrounds. We also thank campgrounds or places we visit via FAX for any really good services provided. It works wonders for goodwill and helps them to understand the importance of modern communications for their business, including a pitch for Internet access and modem friendly campgrounds. To review all the options of ZAP-IT, log on to www.dtswireless.com or call them at 1-800-967-0943. They are truly the most helpful people involved in ISP or PCS services I have ever experienced or heard of.
The Allpoints wireless modem doesn't come cheap. It runs about $422.00 but there are other ways to acquire it rather than paying up front for it. ZAP-IT will send one to you if you sign up for one of the three levels of yearly contract and WyndMail will lease one to you. They require a deposit on the modem. Similarly, if you do not own a laptop ZAP-IT will provide a Windows C.E. palmtop or Hewlett Packard palmtop computer at discount cost. If you go this route, be sure to get a PCMCIA regular landline modem, because there will be many times you are out of RAM radio range. These little computers come with a scaled down version of Windows 95 with Microsoft Word and Excel spreadsheet software. This can be a very good deal if you don't already own a laptop or only carry a regular, full sized computer system on board. It will allow you to use the palmtop or laptop when sitting under that old oak tree by a stream, waiting for a fish to bite. Your work, Email or data can be transferred later to the main computer when and if you wish. I do some of my best writing under those serene circumstances, which doesn't seem to happen often enough to suit us.
There is an exciting PCS service that will start becoming available in late 1998. It is called Iriduim and is an 8 year international effort to place 40 satellites in orbit and offer 2 way communications to/from it. It will revolutionize wireless communications as we know it and will compete directly with cellular telephone services. It will offer all we have talked about in this article except typical data speeds from satellite is between 200 Kbps and 400 Kbps. Multiple efforts to talk to someone associated with the project has not provided any idea what the service will initially cost. Until Iridium starts becoming available to the public, or if something of new interest comes along, I will try to refrain from further detailed communications aspects of computing on the road. This subject has been pretty well covered in this and previous articles. In future articles we plan to talk about such things as hard drive back-up methods, PC based banking, cookbooks, budget tracking, some games and their dangers to your computer as well as stock trading/tracking. If you wish to comment on this, any other of my articles, or to simply ask about any other aspect of "Computing on the Road" send me an email, and I will be more than glad to respond timely & thoroughly.