Internet Issues

As our trip concludes we are faced with a problem that has haunted us for the past two months, bad internet.  While we have had spurts of tremendous internet (Hong Kong, Hangzhou, Bangkok, Etc.), this trip has reminded us that all too often internet is not a right, but rather a privilege.

In fact even in a country as modern as Australia, it is customary for hotels and lodging accommodations to come without free wi-fi.  And furthermore, if you do decided to pay, it will cost you between $5 and $30 USD a day for internet that is slow and has data limits.

Thus with this in mind we wanted to apologize for our lack of online activity.  In Sydney, our hostels had pay-internet that was fast but only worked on one device at a time.  As such our time there involved a flurry of switches between computers and phones in an effort to upload photos and contact loved ones.

However here in Melbourne, it is only worse.  While the coffee-crazed city with hipsters may feel eerily reminiscent at times of San Francisco, the internet quickly reminds you that you are thousands of miles from the heart of the tech world.  At our “hotel” here in Melbourne, internet is not only paid for, but also includes speed caps, data caps, and the feature that you must pay for each device you use on the web.  So, in layman’s terms, the internet here sucks.

Thus here is our internet plan for Australia.  For the next several days in Australia, I assume that Alex will write another post before he departs and I will do my best to try posting again when I get to Cairnes (up North near the Great Barrier Reef) in 3 days.  As for now, it looks like computers down and reading it is, cheers (as they say here).

P.s. Just writing this article used my internet limit for the day and I had to post it using my phone’s 3G.

– Robert