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(c) Elliott Publishing.

Easy E-Mail
The Occidental Tourist · April 5, 2000

Last week, the Tourist unloaded his own horror show of e-mail frustrations on the road. He appreciates yours for consideration of a future column at tourist@ticked.com, and include your full name and city/town of residence.

Because he considers this column a public service, here’s the skinny on products that are making it easier to log on to email on the road:

- Many services now offer e-mail without a computer: For many, this could eliminate the drudgery of toting that heavy laptop from airport to hotel. Sharp Electronics Corp. offers TelMail, a pocket-sized gadget that can send and receive e-mails and faxes from practically any telephone in the U.S. without any special hook-ups. The product sells for $119 (but a $20 rebate is available), along with a $9.95 monthly service charge for unlimited use with a toll-free number connection. It allows users to send and receive messages of up to 4,000 characters to and from any e-mail address.

- At just under $60, software from Mercury Mobile receives your e-mail, calls your mobile phone and reads it to you in English, French, German, Italian or Spanish.

- Onebox combines e-mail as well as voice mail and fax services into one messaging service that’s accessible from any phone or e-mail system. For now, the company promises that the basic service will be free. But it indicates that optional, premium services TBD in the future will include charges.

- Mobile phones to the rescue: Ericsson Mobile Phones are now sporting both built-in and snap-on wireless modems that allow customers to connect with their laptop or digital assistants and send e-mails. Models are priced at about $300.

- Other Tech-Age Tools make e-mailing less of a slow drain: STSN has cut recent hotel deals and will be wiring its high-speed Internet service in 500 Marriott hotels, as well as 5,000 Ritz-Carlton rooms by February 2000. The STSN connection is promised to be 50 times faster than traditional hotel-based modems.

- Solar Communications has launched PCRoomLink, which is a high-speed Internet-access PC that is installed in hotels, such as those at Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York. The in-room PC is designed to provide secure, corporate network access. (For these in-room, high-speed services — which are expected to grow significantly in the next year — check with the hotel you book as to whether it’s provided and if it comes at an additional charge.)

National Electronic Technologies, Inc. plans to establish VideoNET e-mail linked terminals at an estimated 3000 hotels, including Bass Hotels and Resort properties, by the end of 2000. The service promises that travelers will be able to use any e-mail account at no more than 20 cents a minute. Of course, many people simply avoid lugging a techno-anchor on a plane.

There’s plenty of resources out there for them too: It’s difficult these days not to find a retail business-services joint to check up on e-mail. Beats toting 20 extra pounds on the road. Besides, coffee shops, libraries and old-reliables like Kinkos offer e-mail via the Internet practically everywhere these days. Net cafe locators are available at cybercafe.com or netcafeguide.com.

And if you dread setting up separate accounts, e-mail forwarding services such as Mail Director offer Web-mail links to your current accounts.

The Occidental Tourist is a magazine writer in Washington, DC. He writes for Maxim, POV, Capital Style and ABCNews.com. His column appears on Tuesdays. E-mail him at tourist@ticked.com.