Can I take my laptop and actually use it?

Kengonetoindia

Hello everyone, I'm new to IndiaMike. I'm a 58 year old Canadian planning to travel to India. My business is done on the internet and as such I can live on an island on Canada's west coast. Now India is pulling at me.

Can I work as I travel through India? Are the phone connections reliable enough? Are Internet Café's really available to get/send email and attachments? Is regular phone service available everywhere?

Am I kidding myself here?

Ken

steven_ber

Ken, welcome to indiamike.com

Have a look at this thread and this one.

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How to get helpful replies to your transport/Itinerary questions.



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Kengonetoindia

Thanks so much steven, I'm blown away with the information you've pointed me to. This India Mike is way fabulous.

steven_ber

indiamike.com is as addict-able as India itself.

raos

One thing you may want to investigate re internet access is buying a cell phone which will allow you to connect right from your laptop. We have a Reliance postpaid account, and you can buy a modem from Reliance which fits right into a USB port and connects to your cell phone, which gives you internet access. It's not nearly as fast as broadband, and from what is now a distant memory of dial-up access, I'd say it's maybe 25-50% faster than a regular phone line. But since internet cafes are not always available or may be inconvenient, it's great to have such portability. I also assume, without any facts, that it's more secure than an internet cafe, so if you need to use your credit card online or pay bills, it would make me feel less worried about on-line theft.

The only problem with getting a postpaid acct from Reliance is that I think you need a permanent address in India. It's possible other cell phone companies may have the same service, but when we arrived we were told Reliance was the only one. It's a rapidly changing industry in India so it's worth checking around. We also think Reliance has horrible customer service, but I don't know how it compares to other cell companies given general Indian business practices.

Good luck!

channamasala

In Mumbai at least at the domestic airport there's a snack bar where you can hook up your laptop. Or use one of theirs.

Internet is fairly reliable on cafe computers, but I see very few places where you can hook up your own machine. Of course that might be because I am not looking hard enough.

There is something available from Reliance if you have a Reliance phone/plan, a little USB plugin thingamawhatchits and a driver CD for "R-Connect Dialer" that will hook you up via a cell phone to the internet.

But it screwed up my computer so be careful with it

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lightning

Hi ken,
I'm typing to you on my laptop plugged straight into a cyber cafe's 512 MB/s ethernet cables...if you're running OSX it auto-configures itself on any network, on NT, XP you'd know best.
the only piece of extra kit you might consider brining is a short (4-5 feet) ethernet extension cable with one female end to get you from a short floor-positioned ethernet tail on a PC down there if there's no other line free.
(the female plugs are hard to find here so make one stateside) that said, you will probably not have to use it.

soulfood

This is awesome. I had no idea!

More info about Rconnect on Reliance website. You don't need to be a postpaid customer. There are some plans for other customers as well.

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