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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."
It's a cross between instant messaging and asynchronous voip.
http://voicebeep.com/sayit
I worked at a MARS (Military Affiliate Radio Station) station in Vietnam back in the 70s, and have been a ham since then, and I can tell you you're gonna have major difficulty doing any kind of HF phone patches from that part of the world.. HF propagation from there to the US is pretty spotty at the best of times. I've lost contact with the MARS program, and would guess that with all the better communications options today for deployed military morale traffic, that old-style HF phone patches have gone the way of the dodo bird...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
I would disagree slightly here. I am an IT Manager that has a dozen or so remote sites in Afghanistan and Iraq. I would not consider the internet and call centers plentiful. We are often forced to use VSAT to get any connection at all. When there is a military provided connection it is usually a SIPRNET or NIPRnet. Use of VoIP and personal communications on these networks is usually prohibited. We do have good luck with Skype and even Vonage when there is an internet connection, though it is often heavily delayed (think 800 - 1200ms delays).
I recently acquired my (now deceased) grandparents home. He was a WWII veteran, radio man, who taught at the Coast Guard Academy and served in the Navy in communications. Until he died when I was 17, he had a 100' tower in his yard (many kid accidents caused by guy wires) and was a dedicated HAM, he hosted the repeater for the region. Among the many dusty certs on the wall of his small shop/office is a MARS cert. What a fantastic program and comradery. From what I can tell, that and like-minded groups of guys would hear the poster's question and move hell or high water to make it happen, that was their cause. Do we have such geeks today? I suspect we do and if so, we need to celebrate them with crusty-edged paper that bears their name and shows up on Slashdot decades later. If not....