Re: Using my Bigpond email via wifi whilst overseas

Hi BRJ, you might be able to find extensive posts of mine on this subject, and to my knowledge nothing has changed in this respect.

 advice is always sound, but in this case it needs a couple of maybe's:

If logged on to wifi, you should have no problems receiving BigPond email. BUT - YOU MAY HAVE TROUBLE SENDING EMAILS!!

It partly depends on what technology your email was set up on within the Telstra Systems, and you will only find this out when you find that you can not send emails when overseas. Telstra (and other carriers) have historically used what is called "Client - Sever" technical arrangements for email, and when you log-on in an overseas country, your Telstra "Server"  maybe unknown to the outgoing email server where you are.

There are two solutions to this issue: firstly if you delete your email account and recreate it, the process of re setting up your email will re-establish a known Telstra Server relationship.  I find this too clumsy to be practical when (say) doing a river cruise through 20 places.  Secondly, you can log on to your email vis "Web Mail". This is commonly the Telstra textbook advice, yes it works, but it is very slow and in my experience it is next to useless when trying to operate from a smartphone as the layout is for a desktop. (but it does work and you can do anything with your email that you can do from home - its just tiny and slow)

What I do (and I travel internationally quite a lot). I have a second "Web Based" email account. I use iCloud as I am an Apple user, but any of the well known ones like gmail, hoitmail, yahoo all work fine. I just change my O/G mail server to this web based account and I have no problems. type of holiday, eg cruise, bus?

If you registered your device when you first got it, you probably already have a gmail or iCloud address. If you do not know how to set up another web based email account, just respond here and we will talk you through it. Helpful info includes, what phone, prepaid or account, intended countries. (hope you are not leaving tomorrow)

Another 10 tips:

1. if only using wifi you dont need international roaming on, but I would still activate for emergencies
2. turn off mobile data
3. turn off background application refresh
4. I am strongly against prepaid when travelling, it is less well supported bo other carriers and can be twice the cost
5. note that Telstra recently reduced the cost of Travel Passes significantly, so they are now reasonable value
6. Overseas wifi can be hit and miss, in hotels it can be expensive, and it can be unavailable when you need it, ie between 5pm and 10 pm in a hotel
7. Cruise ship wifi needs a new mortage on the house!!
8. if Cruising, Port of Call WiFi can not cope with 2,500 passangers trying to sign on at the same time
9. Even on a bus, 40 people at the rural taverna cant cope!
10. DO NOT RELY on FON (the Telstra Air Partner). Reads well in the brochure but this site is littered with horror stories re FON