Gerrit wrote:
"Gerrit" wrote in message
...
"Frank Slootweg" wrote in message
b.home.nl...
Thanks for your concern/warning.

I understand - also from looking at (Telstra's) coverage charts - that
3G/NextG/UMTS/whatever coverage in rural/outback areas is much, much
better than GSM coverage. GSM (i.e. GPRS) coverage would indeed be
rather useless.

We will be going basically 'everywhere', especially unsealed roads/
tracks in rural/outback areas in (SA,) NSW, QLD, NT and WA.

We have no real 'need' to be connected, but I'd like to try what's
it's like to have a laptop/mini-notebook with us. I always stayed
cleared from much technology on our trips, only GPS, EPIRB and GSM
mobile. But with these sexy mini-notebooks, I could no longer control
myself. I'm only human, you know! :-)

Frank
Let us know how you went after you return to the Netherlands.
I have been thinking about one of them too, but then one with a hard drive
so that I can take photos to my heart's content.

OR - Maybe you can write a travelogue as you go, and post the instalments
here, to prove it works! :-)

Gerrit


OH and BTW I saw a "news" item the other day where a young bloke had used
his mobile as a modem. In two months his bill had risen to some $40,000.
Better check the fine print.

From posts on this newsgroup, i believe Telstra do a "bolt on" 5GB data
pack for $89 per month. Whatever your data allowance, you really don't
want to go over it - cos Telstra charge somewhere in the region of a
million dollars a gigabyte if you do!

A slight exaggeration, maybe, but it's in the thousands, i believe! I
certainly ended up paying $40 for a very short session, with no
"downloads" as such, last time i connected to the net via NextG - that
was over a year ago now, and i believe they halved the cost since then,
but it's still extortionate.