After my retirement, I could finally do what I love most: wandering around the canals, rivers, lakes and seas from Europe. And that 6 months per year.
The only problem: after the first year I was confronted with a huge bill for all of my telecommunications!
The problem is that all the fixed costs for internet, TV and telephony at home just continues, but adding to that the travelling communications bill just explodes. Within Europe, where you cross a border every couple of hundred kilometers, your telecom bill for phone, tablet or laptop multiplies because of roaming costs.
So how does Peplink help to control those costs? Let me explain.
It starts by ending all fixed contracts for TV, internet and telephony at home. Those were replaced by a DVB-T TV contract, a Mobile Internet contract (7.2 Mbyte down, 2.0 Mbyte up) and a Peplink Surf On the Go.
When at home, the Peplink connects via Mobile Internet. Thanks to it’s ethernet connector I can connect my home IP telephony switch and make calls via internet.
When on-board, the Peplink OTG just comes along together with the IP telephony switch and is connected to the 12V DC boardnet. Depending where I am the OTG connects either to the harbour SSID or falls back to the 3G mobile Internet. All our tablets, smart phones and laptops connect via the wireless LAN generated by the OTG as if they are at home. When in a foreign country I’ll buy a pre-paid 3G mobile internet stick to avoid roaming costs and connect that to the OTG.
And the beauty of it; all of my relations just call my home telephone number to connect to me without knowing whether I am in Holland, France or Turkey.
Does it work? Absolutely!
From a technical perspective the OTG has been flawless. I had some minor issues with the GUI, but the OTG provides optimal connectivity to a large number of SSID’s thanks to it’s powerfull antenna. When moving away from a connected SSID, the OTG automatically falls back to the 3G connection.
The speed of 3G?? Well: I’m not getting 7.2 Mb everywhere, but I have never been in the situation that I could not make a phone call and be on the internet at the same time to do lookups, check e-mail etc.
From a financial perspective? Absolutely! The simple fact that a device as the OTG exists allowed me to reduce my fixed costs at home with 80%. And the remaining costs I can simply share between home and boat: no more double costs! And since I moved all my telephony to VoIP I also reduced my variable costs by 50% and also reduced the costs for my friends and relatives when they call me when we are travelling outside the country since they simply dial our home number!
And I can’t wait till 4G/LTE is introduced in Europe!!