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Keeping in Contact With Family, From Afghanistan?
LiNKz writes "Within a short while I will be heading to Afghanistan and in the interest of keeping in communication with my wife and family I've been looking at different means of it, from VoIP to cellular services. I'm not sure how well connected or how stable of a connection the base I'm deploying to has, which means VoIP might simply not be an option. I have, however, noticed in my searches that Afghanistan has recently boomed with cellular coverage though that too seems to be difficult to ascertain. I'm curious if the Slashdot community has any information or experience regarding international cellular services offered in this country and the means of obtaining it."
Internet access and calling centers are plentiful, at least on the US bases. This is really the *last* thing you need to be worried about.
I'm currently deployed in Afghanistan at FOB Blessing and the broadband phones and internet that the MWR give us for free is actually really quite good considering where we're at. It's free and works perfectly, the only problem is the small amount of computers (8) and phones (3) available for this base with our numbers. Most of the other outposts have a MWR room with similar things in them, maybe less or more comps or phones..
Not many people use the afghani cell phones or their blackberrys (apparently depending on the plan they work here albeit very expensive).
hope this helps or reassures you!
Communication Through un-official means may get you into some trouble, so be discrete no matter what option you choose so be careful. When the prime minister of Canada visited our base in kandahar they blacked out official communications and were really on top of unauthorized communications (no e-mail even). Keep your head down mate!
Video Skype on a Linux Netbook is the easiest way to do it.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
My company provides VSAT service in the Middle East and Africa, including as far east as Afghanistan.
VSAT latency is 600-1000 ms, and many VSAT Internet service providers prioritise voice-over-IP. We certainly do, although to a limited number of providers due to technical limitations.
Given sufficient bandwidth, VoIP will do fine. Be sure to use a service that supports good audio compression, and turn it on. Use G.729 or G.723, and never G.711.
On an iDirect VSAT network with cRTP enabled (RTP header compression), a G.729 call needs about 16 kbit each way. Good VSAT service in that area will have at least 64 kbit upload and 256 kbit download.
My father has been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world and he brings with him a T-Mobile Quad-band phone with the International Package. He got pretty good service in Afghanistan. You can check the rates here: https://www.t-mobile.com/International/RoamingOverview.aspx?tp=Inl_Tab_RoamWorldwide It looks like calls are about $4.99/minute there, so you probably won't want to chat for hours on end, but my family has used this method for several deployments and it works stellar. Thank you for your service.
I'm currently in Afghanistan as well.
SPAWAR provided phones at the MWR are cheap. Take a look at the link: http://oif.spawareurope.net/
Also, Bently-Walker provides good satellite Internet out here. That's what I'm using right now.
Is price an object?
If not, you can buy an iridium phone for around $1400. Plans are around $30/mo, and $1.45 a minute, Or you can do prepaid. They work everywhere, and are pretty portable. You can call the phone from the US for regular long distance charges using a pass-through number.
If you're at an established base, net connectivity isn't an issue. The same connection that provides net connectivity does phones and other comm. This will be kept up as a matter of necessity.
Bandwidth is crap, however. You won't be streaming music or movies. When I was at a rather small, forward base, what I did was telnet/ssh to a pre-setup stateside linux box with an ncurses (read, text based) AIM client installed on it. It's low bandwidth, and generally not filtered. Worst case, setup your stateside box to sit on port 80, which is NEVER entirely blocked.
How useful this all is of course depends on how often you can get a laptop on the network. I was a comm guy, in fact, the comm guy responsible for local infrastructure, so, a drop to my tent was a given, and I brought my own laptop. Depending on your job, you'll get more or less time at a computer, I know most shops had at least one computer in their tent/structure. Since telnet is a standard tool, you don't have to install anything.
Best of Luck!
Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?
Just got back last July. Most cities, major roads and Coalition bases have cell phone voice coverage. In my experience, data services were non-existent outside of Kabul. I primarily used prepaid cell service where I purchased cards to add minutes -- voice only. I made a few international calls on that cell but felt they cost too much for regular use (about $0.80 per minute to US). I used the coalition provided comms wherever possible. The only commercial ISPs I saw off a US base were in Kabul and the data rates were roughly from well below 56k modem to maybe 128k DSL. Hope this helps. Stay safe.
Invenio via vel creo
Afghanistan has pretty good cell phone coverage and not horrible long distance rates. And like most of the rest of the world (not U.S.A) any GSM phone that utilizes the right bands (get a quad band world phone) will work there. A SIM card is like $5.00 and you just buy refill cards at whatever denomination you need. No contracts, no BS, just pay as you go.
In Kabul our house had a 512kbs down 128kbs up satellite link that we split between 18 odd people... It only cost $30,000 a year and was about the cheapest satellite connection available. With that little bandwidth and that many people, VoIP worked decently during non-peak use hours, but not so well when everybody was on. Ping times and packet loss really sucked.
About the time I was leaving a group of friends got a wireless connection, 802.11 something or WiMax I think from one of the cell phone companies. It was about as expensive per person & shared bandwidth as our satellite connection. Being terrestrial based rather than satellite, it had much better ping times.
Most of the bigger military bases have some local ISP on the base providing service for reasonable ($10-60 or so a month) rates. Service is usually way over subscribed and supported by cat5 strung over the ground or what not.
The military is pretty good about supporting the troops. If you have a DSN (Defense Switched Network) phone, which is most of the phones the military has over there, you can call a U.S. military base stateside and have them patch you through to a local number near the base, or a 1-800 number for a calling card.