How do you stay connected with your business and family when you are traveling?

When venturing abroad, travelers use internet via their smartphones or tablets mostly to keep in touch with their business or family. But roaming charges in other countries, or international data plans, are often very expensive. Travelers use public WiFi as an alternative for these high costs, but this comes with high security risks. Are you aware of the risks of using public WiFi? And do you have a solution to avoid them?

Using the WiFi at the airport as soon as you have landed, or asking for the WiFi details in your hotel as soon as you have checked in. These are common situations for people who travel a lot. But public WiFi networks in hotels, coffeeshops or restaurants are not properly secured. For hackers, these networks are a playground to intercept personal messages, passwords, buyer behaviour and even financial details.

 

How do you avoid these WiFi security risks? There are a few solutions:

 

Roam like you’re at home.

Just use your mobile subscription during your trip like you are in your own country. 3G- and 4G-networks are better encrypted than public WiFi. But this comes with another big risk: data roaming can be very expensive. There are many examples of travelers that were unaware of these high data roaming charges, and got a huge ‘bill shock’ when they received their lastest mobile data invoice back home.

 

Buy a local SIM-card.

When you travel often, you must know the telecom and SIM-card shops that you see in airports a lot. You can buy a SIM-card for the country that you are traveling towards, and use it in combination with your own mobile device. That way, you do not have be worried about high costs afterwards, since you can just buy a fixed amount of data. But, you don’t always know how long your trip will be and how much data you need. Besides, most of the SIM-cards are only valid in one country. So, if you are a frequent traveler, this could be a hassle.

 

Use a mobile WiFi hotspot.

A mobile WiFi hotspot is a pocket sized mobile router, which you can take along on any trip. With a pre-setup internet connection. Most portable internet hotspot devices use the 3G and 4G signals from network providers to enable the connection. A portable WiFi hotspot with built-in SIM technology, like We.Stream enables you to enjoy connectivity worldwide. Without the hassle of looking for local SIM-cards. And with the certainty that you can rely on multiple 4G networks per country, so you always experience the strongest available signal. And the best part: We.Stream’s built in VPN-solution keeps your internet connection secure, wherever you are.