Having written about our ability to keep in touch through the Iridium satellite system, my love/hate relationship with our Iridium Pilot continues. Our Pilot is the hardware system fitted into the boat that, combined with additional Mailasail hardware and software, creates a wifi hub with broadband speed. We pay a monthly subscription to AST, the company that supplies the iridium usage, with an inclusive data allowance in our case of 10MB each month. 10MB may not sound very much (and it isn’t very much by terrestrial broadband standards) but the compression software we use means that 10MB is enough for email and weather gribs. We could use uncompressed data and surf the net, receive email attachments and so forth but to do so would use a lot more data and be astronomically expensive. 

There is a more frequently used alternative hardware system called Iridium Go. Linked to a satphone it allows unlimited data each month for a similar cost to that for our 10MB. The Go system is however a lot slower than the Pilot to the extent that the unlimited data usage is academic - it will only cope with compressed email and weather gribs and you just have to wait longer for them to download. 

Had I been fully aware of the advantages and disadvantages of each system at the time I would undoubtedly have opted for the Go system. It is cheaper to buy, the hardware is small and easily installed and you always have the sat phone to take into your liferaft. Ed Wildgoose at Mailasail and who supplied the Pilot says I have a Rolls Royce system. Yes Ed, but I actually only need a Morris Minor. 

Like many online management systems these days (bank, mobile phone, you name it) the responsibility for managing the system has shifted from the company providing it to the consumer. The systems are run by computers and all the management options are with the consumer. Thus when using the Pilot you need to switch it on (fair enough) but then carefully manage it to ensure you are using the minimum amount of data. Every time you use it you must select the degree of compression required. The default position is of course completely unrestricted and uncompressed internet access rather than the highly compressed specific usage you actually require.

I mentioned earlier that it is reasonable to have to switch on the Pilot before using it. It is absolutely imperative that you switch it off again the second you have finished using it. If you don’t the connection with your device will continue and the device will do whatever devices do normally when connected to the internet. If the Pilot happens to be in default mode the device will carry on with all the background functions that have not been switched off. On 1st March I left the Pilot switched on by mistake for about two hours and by 3rd March I had used 49MB at a cost of $488. Five months worth of plan data!! Mailasail has kindly said it will investigate with AST. I think I know what the response will be.
I have another example with Vodafone to illustrate the point. When returning to South Africa I forgot to switch off my mobile phone which also had data roaming activated. During the flight it automatically connected with the Emirates on board wifi. On arrival in Dubai I already had £72 of additional charges added to my Vodafone account despite not using my phone at all on the flight. I contacted Vodafone by chat and explained what had happened. I was told to wait until the monthly account was raised and then I could see exactly what I had been charged for. I simply couldn’t make her understand that it wasn’t the detail I was concerned about, it was the principle of actually being charged. As she said, the Vodafone system keeps a meticulous record of all data usage and there was no chance of it being wrong. She had neither the training nor the comprehension and certainly not the discretion to discuss anything beyond the computer system with which we must abide. I have had similar run ins with Talk Talk and BT. “The Computer Says No!” 

My point is these corporations could easily introduce safeguards as default settings to prevent these unwanted charges being incurred. The fact that they don’t and have default settings that benefit themselves rather than the consumer is a scam that needs to be addressed.