Monday, April 21, 2008

Network Coverage

sapa mobile  tower
image of mobile tower in Sapa: robynejay

When I left Australia I enabled global roaming on my Vodafone account thinking that I would largely get coverage in the large cities such as Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi but not much in the rural areas.

To my surprise quite the contrary has been the case, we have had 100% mobile coverage wherever we have been, even in mountains regions such as Sapa and Bac Ha or coastal islands like Halong Bay. Most of the coverage has been via Vinafone, although while in Lao Cai I did briefly connect to China mobile, well the Chinese corder was 3 km away :>

Amazing really, compared to OZ we are like a 3rd world country when it comes to network coverage, 100 kms out of Sydney you are lucky to get a signal at all.

The same goes for internet access, everywhere we go we have been able to access free wifi, Hotels, Cafeś, restaurants etc. all tout free wifi for customers. Itś been great and I am so pleased we purchased the eee pc itś been fantastic for editing images, uploading to flickr and posting to the travel blog and google map.

Australia has a lot to learn about countries such as Vietnam in terms of providing ubiquitous access for it citizens.

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