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Cellular phones in Internet access
Cellular phones in Internet access
For GSM phones, the worldwide standard pretty much everywhere except Japan and South Korea, GPRS (packet data) is common. The successor to GSM, UMTS is also widely available. While GPRS offers basic modem speeds suitable for email and some browsing (particularly text-heavy rather than graphics-heavy sites), UMTS offers speeds comparable to DSL broadband. Most modern GSM phones, even very cheap models, are GPRS enabled. Using it may require activation with the provider.
There are two basic ways of getting online with your phone:
Use GPRS/UMTS to download mail directly to your phone and surf the web. While this can be done on most any modern phone, you will want a iPhone/Blackberry/Communicator-type device with a large screen to make this practical.
Use GPRS/UMTS to connect another device, typically a laptop, to the Internet.
Note that international GPRS/UMTS roaming can be ludicrously expensive, so check with your operator at home before you start downloading those multi-megabyte attachments.
In the USA and Canada, CDMA (the system used by Verizon and TELUS) is widespread, and arguably the most available service outside of metropolitan areas. CDMA phones can frequently be used as a computer modem with the purchase of an adapter cable, or increasingly they can provide Internet access to your laptop via their built-in Bluetooth. While not part of their basic cell phone service package, Verizon's "Quick 2 Connect" service provides 14.4 kbps Internet access at no additional charge to their customers using the phone and cable combination, and their BroadbandAccess and NationalAccess packages with additional laptop tethering add-on can be used to provide Internet access through many of their current phones.
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Internet access Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.