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Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork
- reubenmorais 8y agoOnly tangentially related to the article, but where/how do researchers get global coverage SIM cards that you can just put on a stork and expect to get data/calling wherever it flies? I've looked for this before but only found what seemed like tourist scams with very high prices per MB/minute.
- gwbas1c 8y agoThat's probably what they were paying. They probably used a very efficient protocol to keep bandwidth consumption low.
- akerro 8y agoMaybe worth looking into how Amazon Kindle solved it years ago? They offered free GSM/3G? access to the internet, something like 150MB/monthly, unlimited access to Wikipedia, in so many countries, basically everywhere.
- PMan74 8y agoAnd car companies presumably have global agreements e.g. I can drive my car across Europe and have all the navigation related stuff continue to work. But easier for Amazon or big car company to broker such an agreement. I think the question is how would Joe Public get something like this.
- codetrotter 8y agoHow many of those navigation systems use the internet though? Most consumer grade car navigation systems use offline maps.
- filleokus 8y agoMany of them (at least in cars < 5 years old) that I've used have had some kind of real-time traffic/congestion/construction info built into the system. I guess these use some kind of internet based communication?
- burning_hamster 8y agoRadio, actually: https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-does-live-traffic-on-gps-work https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-does-live-traffic-on-...
- PMan74 8y agoI was thinking the same as I typed the comment but my assumption is that there has to be some kind of mobile data because of #1 live traffic updates & #2 map updates. On #1 comment below says this is done by radio RDS On #2 however there has to be a way to update the maps in the car as roads (new roads, closures, lane changes, speed limits, etc.) change. My assumption was that car makers hardly expect people to manually update these maps. And likewise could probably not live with the liability of years old data in the maps. But looks like I may be incorrect here http://updateportal.skoda-auto.com http://updateportal.skoda-auto.com BMW at least have actual SIM cards in the cars so original point stands.
- cr1895 8y ago>I can drive my car across Europe and have all the navigation related stuff continue to work. Well, since a year or two EU-wide free roaming is a thing.
- hardwaresofton 8y agoHere in Japan, an attendant at the local meetup works for a company that does just that: https://soracom.io/en/ https://soracom.io/en/
- timewarrior 8y agoGet GoogleFI - $10/GB worldwide
- xori 8y agoOnly if you live in the US
- krn 8y agoAt least in the EU, AldiTalk offers 4G LTE with plans of up to 5.5 GB for 12.99€ / month[1]. I am not sure, though, what is the price per MB when a stork leaves the EU. [1] https://www.alditalk.de/internet-flat-xl https://www.alditalk.de/internet-flat-xl
- fyfy18 8y agoMost, if not all, EU carriers (I assume including this one, but don’t speak German) have a limit of how long you can actually be outside your home country. After that period they either terminate your contract or withdraw the free EU roaming (which is perfectly legal per the regulations).
- krn 8y ago"Complying countries: in major EU countries like the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Cyprus, Malta and Greece there is a general adoption of the principle without any limitations or FUPs on almost all prepaid plans offered."[1] [1] http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/European_Union#Assessment_and_recommendations http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/European_Union#A...
- jsilence 8y agoYeah, basically you'll have to make the stork sign the form that makes him accept the international roaming charges when leaving EU territory.
- ge0rg 8y agoDon't forget that in some countries, the stork's ID card is required to activate the SIM card before use.
- watt 8y agoThe actual data plan price listed there is 14.99, sorry to say. (2.99€ is for the sim card.)
- lozenge 8y agoYou can get emergency beacon devices for hiking and sailing that also work globally.
- tgb 8y agoDo these use a SIM card? Thought they were satellite. That's what the first thing I googled seemed to agree with too ( https://www.yachtingworld.com/features/epirbs-plbs-and-man-overboard-aids-62213 https://www.yachtingworld.com/features/epirbs-plbs-and-man-o... ).
- isostatic 8y agoYes, wouldn't be good in an emergency when out trekking if it needed a nearby base station!
- gaius 8y agoThey work via satellites e.g. SPOT Gen3 or Garmin InReach.
- wjdp 8y agoThey use a mix of satellite and ground radio (satellite to get the SOS out and a rough location, then radio to actually locate you) See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_locator_beacon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_locator_beacon There are lots of types that work in different ways however. E.g. For marine use we use VHF radios with digital functionality. There's a big red 'distress' button that will transmit your vessel information and position to the coastguard. That's all done via radio, no satellites. (You then back it up with a very analogue mayday call)
- estsauver 8y agoI believe twilio has a SIM product now. https://www.twilio.com/wireless https://www.twilio.com/wireless
- owenversteeg 8y agoHuh, that seems pretty decent. $2/mo/sim is a bit expensive though. Almost competitive with Worldsim for small amounts of data.
- pjc50 8y agoIdeally you'd get a dedicated M2M MVNO operator who'll sell you a whole stack of them. If you just want one, you'll have to do a lot of price comparison; Three UK have some nice deals where you can use inclusive minutes/data in some non-EU countries as well as the standard EU free roaming.
- reubenmorais 8y agoThanks for the MVNO keyword, it led me to a few interesting offerings I didn't know existed in my local market. I did some price comparisons and found that unless I'm in different countries every month or I have a hard requirement on using the same number globally, it's much, much cheaper to just get a disposable local SIM card every time I travel.
- wpietri 8y agoDoes anybody know of one that doesn't charge a monthly fee? I have a product idea where I'd like to use mobile data as a backup in case of wifi network failure. So I'm willing to pay a higher per-MB fee if I can avoid a monthly per-SIM fee.
- isostatic 8y agoWith global roaming? Maybe something like knowroaming, $8 for a day's unlimited data in 100+ countries. Not much good if you want to use 100kbytes a day, but for your use case it might work https://www.knowroaming.com/order/data-packages/160-global-unlimited-data-package-1-day.html https://www.knowroaming.com/order/data-packages/160-global-u...
- dankohn1 8y agoI use https://www.bnesim.com/ https://www.bnesim.com/ for a SIM card for my 4G hotspot. They charge €19 a GB in 64 countries, including China, Japan, and most of Europe.
- lathiat 8y agoI use FlexiRoam which gives me ~$30/GB that works in almost any country - everyone I’ve travelled to so far. On the same recharge and SIM card. It also sticks onto your existing sim and lets you software switch between your existing sim and the flexiroam. They also have country specific plans which are cheaper for some specific destinations. I’ve not tried those but I’ve gone through about 25GB of data over 2 years of the global plans in probably 10+ countries. Obligatory referral link which gives you 100MB free data. Though worth searching sometimes travel sites have a promo code that’s good for 500MB or more free: http://roam.my/LATHIAT http://roam.my/LATHIAT
- lathiat 8y ago*While some countries have vastly cheaper data. Some do not and also if you go to lots of destinations the “starter park” / SIM card cost can outweigh the cost difference easily. Which is why it easily made sense to me. Also saves you trying to find one at the airport (strangely not always possible) and also gives you coverage when at transit airports (flying from Australia to varios destinations I almost always have a few hours transit somewhere in the middle) If you’re in a country with easily accessible cheaper data for long enough (eg the UK has really cheap travel sims) you could always switch for that trip.
- sandworm101 8y ago>> ~$30/GB Does that include Canada? That is about HALF the advertised rates where I am. The real rates, after all the fees, are inevitably higher. Please send a few storks my way. https://www.telus.com/en/bc/mobility/plans/ https://www.telus.com/en/bc/mobility/plans/
- ReverseCold 8y agoCanada looks like 5GB/25USD.
- sandworm101 8y agobyob in bc. 80$/month for 1gb/month, advertised price.
- tooop 8y agoInteresting, i have never thought that this is a problem as my telco covers calls/sms in 207 countries and data in 174 countries, you just have to have the correct phone plan (there are 3 groups of countries with different price for data starting from 100MB to 1GB for 15 days at 13EUR)
- dzek69 8y agoI thought this is just normal thing, that you can bring your SIM card anywhere and it will just work. Prices are different thing. The device could be optimized to send the data only when connected to a low-cost network, or send just general data at very low frequency when on high-cost network, just to know the device is alive. Also getting a cheap plan on data but expensive on calls should be also possible.
- AnssiH 8y agoAll providers/plans here (Finland) provide near-global non-free roaming. Is it different where you live? My provider lists ~190 roaming countries, not counting satellite/planes/ships, on their roaming rates page: https://elisa.fi/puheliittymat/kaytto-ulkomailla/ https://elisa.fi/puheliittymat/kaytto-ulkomailla/
- reubenmorais 8y ago> Is it different where you live? Yes, generally you have to activate intl roaming ~a week before you travel, by talking to a customer support agent on the phone, and it's limited to specific regions at a time. It's also ridiculously expensive.
- xorcist 8y agoThe previous owner's migratory patterns likely made international roaming non-optional in this case.
- MaxBarraclough 8y agoYour question is a contradiction, no? As you imply, most SIMs will work just about anywhere, they'll just charge you an obscene amount for the privilege. If you want cheap international telephony, there's a whole industry for travel SIMs, but they're often still pretty expensive to use in some countries. The researchers' real mistake was using a contract SIM. Should have used a prepaid one.
- acranox 8y agoThis was not the stork’s fault.
- ajuc 8y agoWell he could have been more careful :)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- aalleavitch 8y agoPersonally I think the stork was the one who made the phone calls. Just getting back for them putting a tracker on him.
- Symbiote 8y ago"EcoLogic told the Super Express newspaper that somebody found the tracker in Sudan, removed the sim card and put it in their own phone, where they then racked up 20 hours' worth of phone calls" So they actually got a huge bill because they didn't set a SIM lock (if that's possible), and didn't block voice calls and so on. Presumably, they had a good contract for sending tiny packets of data, but not for roaming calls in Sudan.
- donretag 8y agoOne possibility is that the GPS tracker does not have a UI to unlock a SIM card, so the SIM card was set without a pin.
- droopybuns 8y agoSim locking is a device-side control that ensures only a specific carrier’s sim is used in the device. They should have used a limited IoT-oriented sim with data limits. I kinda feel these folks were extraordinarily naive, but I’m coming from the perspective of a telco SME.
- dewey 8y agoI think they were talking about the SIM PIN code not the device locking.
- Symbiote 8y agoI think I mean the PIN lock, the one you have to input after rebooting the phone or inserting the SIM. This has existed since the beginning of GSM, as far as I remember. But probably the GPS receiver can't work with that.
- droopybuns 8y agoPIN lock is right
- jacquesm 8y agoA simlock works the other way around. It is to ensure that a subsidized phone does not end up being used for another carrier. It does not lock a SIM from being used in another device. You probably mean a pin code on the sim, but then you'd have to have a keyboard to enter the pin with and the device most likely did not come with such luxuries (nor a screen).
- llampx 8y agoThey should have either set a SIM lock or reported the SIM as lost once they stopped receiving signals from it. They presumably thought it may come online later or may have forgotten about it. Expensive mistake.
- jwilk 8y agoSIM lock is a restriction built into mobile phones, not into SIM cards. It does nothing to prevent SIM card abuse.
- wodenokoto 8y agoWhat? So if I "sim lock" my card, someone else can just insert it into their device and use my minutes?
- smileybarry 8y agoNo, SIM locks (specifically the pin code kind) program the SIM card to refuse to initialise unless you enter the correct code. It's the actual card that asks for a code, the phone merely forwards the authentication request to the user.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoIt wouldn't be unusual to lose signal for a while though. What if the stork has a layover on a desert island?
- davidhyde 8y agoThe title should read "Sudanese opportunist trains storks to collect sim cards from Poland"
- mobilio 8y agoI wondering why SIM card wasn't Data-Only without voice?
- Rjevski 8y agoBecause most carriers are shit and don't even allow you to set policies on what the SIM can be used for. I have a bunch of M2M SIMs here and they are capable of making calls using a number I didn't even know existed. The SIMs are marketed as M2M and the provider claims voice calls are not possible despite me having proof of the opposite by calling them from it. Thankfully their billing systems don't even mention voice anywhere, but surely if I rack up a big enough bill they'll manually send me the invoice for that.
- nebulous1 8y agoPeople are saying sim lock when the mean sim pin. A sim lock, more usually, locks a phone to a particular network's sim cards, stopping the consumer changing networks.
- kaybe 8y agoMeanwhile, can Microsoft please add an option to Windows10 that says 'this computer is only connected to an internal on-board network and satellite connection, please never try to update'? That was an expensive mistake as well. I really wish people had started to migrate away from Windows earlier, but now all the essential stuff is written for it and well-tested, so any choice is hard.
- kevindqc 8y agoI think there is something like that already. Look for "metered connections".
- joshvm 8y agoThere is, but Windows 10 will disable this functionality after a month so you have to keep logging in to reset it. We had problems using a remote PC with a 4G dongle - programs like Office kept downloading updates even when Windows update was disabled. Having turned on metering, we didn't even think about it until the bill came through.
- yekepa 8y agoYou have to edit the registry for windows update to completely stop from working. Did that to an computer with an old program that just have to work. Previously an windows update killed the program. Google!
- yekepa 8y agoThe link: http://www.itprotoday.com/management-mobility/q-how-can-i-disable-windows-update http://www.itprotoday.com/management-mobility/q-how-can-i-di...
- rjsw 8y agoThat must be a new feature. The registry keys are still set on my only Windows 10 machine to make all possible network connections metered. It won't install the newest update anyway so I'm probably safe.
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- isostatic 8y agoOh good, when the kids ask the difficult question -- "where does the internet come from" -- I can legitimately say "a stork brings it"
- ccozan 8y agoFunny enough, we told our kids, in order to block youtube&co, that internet comes once a year, with Santa. :) Not knowing, we put their tables in flight mode. Now they are waiting for Christmas :))).
- isostatic 8y ago> we put their tables in flight mode Returned to the upright position and locked for landing?
- isk517 8y agoIn Sudan it is quite common for people to hunt storks in order to harvest their valuable SIM cards.
- halflings 8y agoGot a link that confirms this? All I find online is this Polish story. If true, that would be pretty ironic (an ecologic charity making storks endangered by tracking them).
- jnbiche 8y agoYou're kidding, but you don't think that once word gets around some desperately poor region that tracker device == free phone calls, people aren't going to try and kill the bird to get the tracker? If you think that's not likely, you've got a lot more faith in humanity than I do.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- lallysingh 8y agoThen they'll find that the Sim cards are locked and don't work, and will stop wasting their time on them.
- TomMarius 8y agoExcept that they mostly do work
- digi_owl 8y agoSpeculating here, but i suspect there was no pin or similar so that people in the field could just power it on, attach it to a bird, and let the bird go. Never mind that i suspect that the data amount was not much more than a sms with a GPS position sent to a fixed number every X hours.
- pndy 8y agoIt's kinda amusing I'm reading this "news" by help of HN on BBC News page. Still, it seems to be really not interesting (typical to "silly season" or as we're saying here in Poland "cucumber season") as no other media outlet has copied it - well, beside Super Express but that's just a tabloid newspaper of same level as British The Sun, and they love such - pardon the word, shit.
- acobster 8y ago"Scientists rack up huge phone bill - your jaw will DROP when you learn why!"
- mortenjorck 8y ago"Scientists HATE this trick to get free phone service!" That said, while the article itself may not be much more than an anecdote, it does seem to have inspired some interesting SIM security conversations here.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoIt's from BBC's News From Elsewhere [1], which covers weird local stories that their journalists come across. It's meant to be light, humorous news. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23204394 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23204394
- tenfold 8y agoSlow news day on HN.
- isostatic 8y agoSo why is there a charity to do with polishing a table?
- 7952 8y agoThese trackers are interesting devices. There is a model that uses a light detector to estimate location. It has a clock onboard and can record the time of dawn and dusk. The time of dawn gives an indication of longitude. The length of day latitude.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- iliis 8y agoThere was a similiar case in South Africa, where SIM cards were stolen from traffic lights and also racked up large bills: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12135841 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12135841
- tzs 8y agoThat's reminiscent of this incident from a few years ago [1]. A women in Australia took a SIM card from an electric meter and used it to download a bunch of movies and make a lot of calls, which the electric company found out when they got a bill for A$200k. I can't find a link, but I have a vague recollection of a similar thing happening in the US. Some cellular providers have data plans specifically for things like remote sensors that need to periodically reports small amounts of data, such as few hundred bytes an hour. They have low data caps and astronomical per kilobyte charges if you go over the cap. [1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/02/stolen_sim_woman_jailed/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/02/stolen_sim_woman_ja...
- decryption 8y agoThe woman who did that was sent to jail for 18 months too! [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-02/woman-jailed-for-it-theft/2697612](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-02/woman-jailed-for-it-theft/2697612) http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-02/woman-jailed-for-it-th... Pretty harsh I reckon.