Tech, and Lack Thereof

Like food (see Slow Carbing It Up), our ability to communicate with the outside world is on our minds and in our conversations every day. After all, running an internet company basically requires being connected all the time, and we use the internet for a lot of our recreation as well. Before we got here, we knew that if the connection was unusable, we would just have to go back home. So it was a gamble coming here. While communication technologies here have turned out to definitely be a big step down from what we're used to, we've adapted and are still fairly efficient at getting things done and staying connected.

For internet access, we use cell phone network USB sticks. The speed of these things is highly variable. Usually it's decent, getting as high as 1Mbp/s download, or 125kB/s, if you're lucky. All too often though the sticks are highly uncooperative, and the internet essentially becomes unusable, with pages taking minutes to load or simply not loading at all. So when the internet is working, you use it while you can, and when it isn't working, you just do something else.

Our difficulties were compounded when one of the sticks stopped working at all a week ago, and now only two of the three of us can be online at the same time. We're constantly juggling the sticks between each other, figuring out who needs to be connected at any given time. It takes some coordination, but it hasn't been too hard to adapt.

Straight up internet access covers about 90% of our needs, but there are still some things we need to do through mail, fax and phone as a business. This is especially true for George, our business guy. And so we have become familiar with a number of internet services (recommended by Tynan in his book, Life Nomadic) that fill in these gaps.

Take mail for example. There is no postal service here, it seems. There's barely an address system, in fact. In the words of Wikitravel:

There are no formal street addresses in Costa Rica, but two informal systems exist. The first (often used in tourist information) indicates the road on which the establishment is located (e.g., "6th Avenue"), together with the crossroad interval (e.g., "between 21st and 23rd Streets"). In practice, street signs are virtually non-existent, and locals do not even know the name of the street they are on. The second system, which is much more reliable and understood by locals, is known as the "Tico address", usually involving an oriented distance (e.g., "100 meters south, 50 meters east") from a landmark (e.g., "the cathedral").

So we've been using mailaletter.com to mail things. George tried it for the first time earlier this week, but he was not pleased with the process. It took him three or four hours to fill out and mail just one form digitally. I also had difficulty getting a fax service, fax1.com, to work, which took some extra time. While they are inefficient, these tools are thankfully not needed very often. And it is handy to be able to do this sort of thing from anywhere with an internet connection and a computer and nothing else.

Receiving mail has been much nicer though. I signed up for Earthclass Mail, and I've been managing all my mail through it's online interface. While it's not cheap, and they nickel and dime you for every little service you request, I think it's worth the cost for a traveler or someone who moves often.

Phone calls can be tricky. I have a toy-like Telestial cell phone for emergencies, but for the most part we try to stick to things like Skype. Great price for making calls anywhere, but subject to the whims of the internet connection. Receiving calls involves Google Voice, which I have my US phone forwarding to for the duration of the trip. I can have Google Voice further forward those calls to my Telestial phone or to Google Chat, or hypothetically to Skype if I were to pay for a Skype phone number. It's a bit of a mess honestly, and breaks down under its own complexity.

While all these things are kind of a hassle, I don't think it's too bad; it's not unduly onerous. And anyway, if the internet refuses to work and there's nothing else work related I can do, I'll just go read a book by the pool in the 80 degree weather. I can wait.