Holding down usage over RBGAN and BGAN

Holding down usage over RBGAN and BGAN – 11 tips for controlling your costs

By Eric Hoenigmann, Associate Director of Surgance, Inc. and Mike Bizub of Bizub Communications
August 2007

Editor's note: This article was drafted by Eric Hoenigmann using information provided by Mike Bizub of Bizub Communications on ways to reduce unnecessary and unexpected usage with the RBGAN and its recently arrived cousins in the BGAN series. The information and tips that Mike offered were so useful that we asked and received permission to publish them here.

Eric has been involved in community development work for six years—most recently with Surgance. He had contacted HumaniNet for assistance in finding a reliable service provider who could help a field partner control costs with their RBGAN in Africa.

Mike has provided tech support and very helpful tips to hundreds of RBGAN and BGAN users since the RBGAN was introduced in 2003. Too many users have learned the hard way that their friendly computer is quietly busy when online and can send buckets of data over the Internet when logged in on a satellite connection, running up big bills.

The HumaniNet team thanks both Eric and Mike for their outstanding research and cooperation! - Gregg S.

Following the tips below, you can stay ‘in touch’ without driving up your satellite usage costs:

USE MS Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, or other ‘client-based’ email application (that is installed on your PC) to send and receive e-mail.

DO NOT use Webmail to send/receive your email...it can be 10 to 20 times more expensive than using mail software.

USE an instant messaging application (Skype or MS Messenger...NOT Yahoo or AOL Instant Messenger) for real-time conversations via TEXT messaging, NOT voice or video.

•	Yahoo and AOL Instant Messenger often have advertising, which will unnecessarily consume more data transfer.
•	Voice and video will dramatically drive up the consumption of data transfer...therefore, dramatically increasing your bill...especially a video chat.

DO NOT perform Microsoft system updates over the RBGAN link...they will drive up the consumption of data transfer...therefore, a very big bill! A typical Microsoft Service Pack update is between 50MB to 120MB (cost = hundreds of dollars).

•	Through your Windows system’s Control Panel, find the Automatic Updates tool (within Security Center if XP Professional) and turn off ‘Automatic Updates.
•	When necessary, bring your PC/Laptop to an establishment with Internet access (coffee shop, internet café, etc) to perform system updates.

DO NOT leave your PC unattended while ‘on-the-air’ (online over the satellite network)...especially if browsing the web and having visited an interactive site which refreshes itself at timed intervals—remember each refresh will cost you $$!

DO NOT watch/listen to streaming media (video/music/voice) via this connection...it will drive up the consumption of data transfer...therefore, dramatically increasing your bill.

BEWARE of file downloads!

BEWARE of sending large files (ie, photos, graphic files, etc) via e-mail...they will drive up the consumption of data transfer...therefore, high costs.

For monthly project or ministry updates, consider sending one email to a trusted party at your home office who can then forward your e-mail to your distribution list. When the recipients hit Reply to tell you how much they liked your report, it will go to your trusted agent, not to your satellite connection.

10.

Consider configuring your default email signature with a message such as this one (used by one of our RBGAN field partners in a remote area):

"Since we are using e-mail via satellite, please do not send attachments,
pictures, or forwarded messages. Please do not include our message in your
reply. If possible, using plain text also helps cut the costs. Thanks!"

11.

Finally, DO NOT send documents that use Word or other word processing applications unless you have to. Simply type or copy your document onto Notepad, which can be copied into the body of the email or sent as a low-kilobyte attachment. Notepad documents are much smaller than Word docs. Remember to tell this to your correspondents also – it costs as much to receive Word files as to send them. (Thanks to Wendy Brooks of ADRA for this tip.)

Here are a few estimates of what it will cost to transmit information with this service (Note: all prices in US dollars, using typical per-megabyte rates – but not including the monthly fee):

•	A 500-word text-only email (5KB): ~ $0.03
•	A simple webpage (25KB): ~ $0.15
•	A two-page Word document: ~ $0.27
•	2-page text-only word doc (44KB) attached to a text-only e-mail with 260 words (1,669 characters): ~ $0.38
•	A photo taken with a three mega-pixel digital camera: ~ $3.20

Assuming 100 emails per week with an average email 10 kilobytes/e-mail, roughly the size of a text-only email of about 800 words (note that this is an assumed total of emails, sent and received), 100 emails @ 10 kilobytes = 1 megabyte (Mb) per week. Translating that kind of traffic into $$$, about $6.25/week OR $25/month beyond the monthly service fee.

Instant Messaging will provide more real-time communication at an affordable rate
be sure to use an instant messaging service that is text only, such as Windows Messenger or Skype—but be sure only to utilize the text chat, NOT the video or voice chat.

Estimating on the high side, this method may consume ~0.5MB/hour of instant message chatting...I really think the costs would be much less. I could not find any other data to justify lower costs.

Service providers offer a variety of ways to control usage. For RBGANs, Bizub Communications offers these features:

•	An online firewall to enable web compression
•	Ability to restrict the web traffic permitted to/from your RBGAN system, by URL and/or port
•	Configure traffic monitoring and alerts for automatic notification once you’ve reached a pre-defined level of consumption.
•	Configure limits to a pre-defined level of megabyte usage.

Editor's note: The last two features, setting up usage level notifications and limits, is offered by most service providers. We strongly recommend that RBGAN and BGAN users implement notifications and limits, and periodically review their usage. Know how to contact tech support from the field in case you need assistance with this.

HumaniNet also suggests that RBGAN and BGAN users take a look at the UUPlus service. We can direct you to additional articles and resources for these terminals and for satphones also. Contact info@humaninet.org with your name, organization, name of service provider, and location of the terminal or satphone.