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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.
It's a cross between instant messaging and asynchronous voip.
http://voicebeep.com/sayit
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!
RFC1149 is the obvious approach one would take. Though there is some packet loss, the packets can be sufficiently large to transmit entire messages without fragmentation.
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!
Osama, is that you?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Unless you like giving NSA employees jollies, don't be doing any phone sex from Afghanistan.
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..)
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?
If the guy wants to go sightseeing; who are you to suggest that he shouldn't? You're acting as though he's gonna go there and kill ppl ffs!
Requiem for the American Dream
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I was deployed to Afghanistan last year and was able to call back home a few ways. Also it helped that I was signals intelligence.
Skype-on Bagram or Kandajar this was very popular since you can get your own internet (crappy Indian internet at least) in your B-Hut. A USB skype is great for MWR computers, but you will have spyware and/or a virus on it after you use it. Also if you use this option bring a copy of limewire or some flavour of it and tell it to not connect to the internet. Both areas are giant LANs so you can get tons of movies and music. I bought a 500 gig HD there and filled it before I came home.
Calling card- this is the simplest way on semi built up FOBs and main bases. Cheap, simple and effective. VoIP phones are everywhere in heavy duty areas. Just make sure you get a state side DSN that will transfer you out to POTS. Some airbases and guard bases in the states will transfer you for free to local numbers in the area you are calling, so make sure to ask your chain of command if anything exists like that for you.
Cell phone-it is pretty expensive but it works. Shop around for minutes at different markets through out the country. Cell phone reception goes from decent near cities and main highways to "I haven't seen a bar on my phone for the last 400 miles."
Make friends with somebody that has an iridium- About 2 months into my tour I was given a job that meant I had to travel to every corner of Afghanistan and back again. Before we left my first sergeant gave me an iridium and said to use it if SIPR/NIPR/DSN was unavailable. We soon figured out we could use it as much as we wanted so we pimped it out at remote FOBs. The guys were very thankful for that. Pretty much for 10 months we had our own personal satellite phone. There is bound to be a few others around the country in a similar situation.
Good luck and I hope you don't have to go to Konar, Korengal or Musah Qaleh.
To use a Cell Phone network in a country that is very likely infiltrated by your adversary and using it to place phone calls to your loved ones at home.
You loose anonimity for you and your family and it can be used against you.
is in iraq on his second deployment. before he left for the second time, he picked up a laptop, and now communicates with the family via skype, and keeps in touch with his buds via wow.
iraq is iraq, and afghanistan is afghanistan, i can't really speak to what differences there may be from base to base let alone country to country, but i'd have to assume that there would be some similarities in infrastructure, availability, etc. expect your latency to be pretty high. my buddy's wow ping is usually around 2k. not sure how well skype works, but he hasn't asked about finding a replacement, and voice chat/vent for wow worked ok.
good luck
not only is time travel possible, it's irrelevant.
I forgot those dessert dwelling peasants attacked our freedom right? Give me a break.
Yeah, what could they possibly do. It's not like they could fly planes into buildings packed with people or anything.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Yeah... Let's harass every country that could potentially do that.
Not a great idea, how about just the groups who actually have done it. Like the 9/11 attacks were done by Al-Qaeda for example. You know, those guys hiding in Afghanistan.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
No they can't, in fact half of them don't even speak English.
Yeah, you're right, they can't. Except for the fact they did, but who cares about facts.
Perhaps we should jail the entire United States over the Virginia tech massacre while we are at it.
If that attack was a military/terrorist attack with political goals sponsored by an organisation as part of an ongoing campaign it would be appropriate to attack and destroy that organisation. If they were being sponsored and protected by a government it would be appropriate to take action against that government including, if necessary, military action. Neither Afghanistan nor any other country has had its entire population jailed, if you're going to use a straw man argument you could at least use one that isn't quite so stupid.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Unfortunately, the OP forgot to include one bit of important information: are they being deployed as part of military service, or as part of a civilian effort?
While there are a few people on Slashdot who are or have been in the military (and I hope they speak up), I daresay the general Slashdot opinion will be worth about what the OP paid for it: squat. I haven't been in the service, but can imagine that there are a raft of security issues around communications back home and that they need to be done through approved channels.
For civilian deployments, however, the story is entirely different. For this, there is lots of worthwhile advice. Here's my bit ...
1. I've yet to be in a town, even in remote parts of eastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, where there isn't some sort of internet cafe. Connectivity is available. Some intenet cafes even have headsets for Skype.
2. Cellular phone service is nearly ubiquitous. Seriously. You have to get very remote to not have some kind of mobile phone service. The US has terrible coverage compared to Europe and the Middle East. I've been on small, remote islands in the Aegean with 5 bars. And I've yet to find a country (including in the former Soviet bloc) where you can't get pay-as-you-go service that's heaploads cheaper than any US phone company's international roaming. Just make sure that your phone is (a) unlocked and (b) quad band GSM. Or buy one there.
3. Everything in the Middle East is negotiable. Everything. Negotiation and bartering is part of the culture.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
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....
I was stationed at Schofield Bks, Hawaii in the late 90's. There was a MARS site near Area X-Ray (ranges) that seemed to be in use. It's been about 10 years...but I imagine the mil hasn't given up on that stuff entirely.
THL phish sticks
Al-Qaeda did that? How on Earth did a database file named Al-Qaeda, that contained the names of all the horrible people the CIA gave money/weapons to in the 80s in Afghanistan, fly 2 planes into 2 buildings?
I think some people may have done it, personally
As I said "You know, those guys hiding in Afghanistan." The "guys hiding in Afghanistan" being the "people" you mention, you idiot. Whether you think Al-Qaeda is the correct name to use to describe their organisation is irrelevant.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
I was deployed to Iraq in '06/'07. When I was there, cell phones were a big no-no, and for good reason. Allowing unsecured communications is a BIG security risk. VOIP was also not an option because there was no way to connect my computer to the Internet and one cannot simply install unauthorized software on government computers.
Your best bet is to use provided channels. We had phones though MWR (very cheap but limited to 30 min calls and with long waits), and the AT&T phone center (less wait time, no time limits, but more expensive). I found that using the military's DSN network was the best bet if you can get access to a phone. (I worked in the company office so it wasn't a problem for me.) Call a stateside switch board and they can give you an outside civilian line. From there you can use a regular phone card. If you find a switchboard near home you may be able simply to place a local call.
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
Oops!
That should have read - I'm *NOT* trying to be a troll...
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Probably best to wait and see when you get there. It's been over a year since I was there and NIPR was horrible and limited but enough to provide the basic connection. Then our camp had a satellite connected that about a hundred of us shared. It was slower than dialup and expensive with a high monthly rate and initial equipment charge of a 2-3k, if memory serves. Hopefully things have changed and you have fiber to the hubble by then. lol. Good luck and keep your head down!
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.