I’ve been working towards official Road Warrior status for some time, but, to be honest, the cost of doing business online was a bit of a worry.
As a web site designer and marketer I need virtually 24/7 access. I have clients in the US, Canada, Hong Kong, mainland Australia and throughout Tasmania.
As an ‘early adopter’ of technology I wasn’t fazed by the ‘how’ but more by the ‘how much?’
It takes me back to the early days when I used to run Desktop magazine from my ‘electronic cottage’ in the wilds of the Tasman Peninsula near Port Arthur.
As Editor I liaised with freelance staff in every capital city, head office in Sydney, and product developers worldwide.
Initially most of of the material was collected by snailmail [and Express Post near deadline], communication was mainly by fax and landline, and emails were just beginning to make inroads — initially via a 2.4Bd modem and gradually creeping up … 9.6Bd …14.4Bd … and a big leap to 56Bd.
They were all painfully slow, and expensive. From my country base it worked out to $12 an hour [thanks Telstra] and sending big image files was simply a no-no.
Then came the move to the city and the gradual embrace of broadband.
When I first started contemplating getting on the road it looked like the only way to go was with a satellite dish — and I was not that impressed with the speed, cost and process of setting it up at each stop.
But, thanks to Moore’s Law [as loosely interpreted by the 'press'] which postulates that computers double in speed every 18 months or so [and roughly halve in cost] I finally have a little electronic dongle — half the size of my mobile phone which allows me to access the Internet from anywhere that I can get 3G reception.
And it works. I get good upload and download speeds; enough to justify the expense and enable me to continue to work on the road.
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