"High Speed" Internet service on Rarotonga

Hi folks,

My wife and I were married on Rarotonga in 1999 and we are planning a return trip this year with our two daughters. My wife can stay only for a week, and I am contemplating a longer term stay (~3 additional weeks) with my 6-year old who will be on summer break. I can only do this if there is reliable, reasonably 'high speed' Internet service available. I am fortunate to have a job that I can do from anywhere, as long as I have my laptop and a reasonably reliable connection to the Internet.

It appears that some Rarotonga residents frequent this board and I am keen to hear from them on this subject.

I would also be interested to know if there are child-minding options available on Rarotonga during working hours. I am not referring to Western-style 'daycare' but rather a short term arrangement with a family that has a daughter around the same age as mine.

Best regards,
Jeff

Edited by: Umbriago

Check http://www.oyster.net.ck/wifi/ for wifi cards. I've not used them in Raro.

or.. call the Telcom office in Raro or go to their site:
http://www.telecom.co.ck/

The fastest public provider I found in Raro was at the Telecom office. My guess that is that it was around .5 to 1M, last time I used it was December 08

I have used the Oyster Cards on Raro. It's how you pay for internet in some hotels. They charge by MB, not by time (50MB is NZD 15). I've used it in a few places on Raro and can confirm that the best reception was at the Telecom office in Avarua. I don't have a need for high speeds so it's just a guess but I think the speed was global standard, what I am used to elsewhere. The Telecom site supposedly lists all hotspots on Raro but I know they are missing some, for example the Salsa Cafe in Avarua also has a hotspot.

Depending on where your home is, our local children may be in school during your intended vacation. I suggest you enrol your daughter into one of our primary (junior) schools located around the island. This is the best means for your child to make friends, and receive ongoing education in a fun setting too. Your daughter will make friends for life this way.

There are various WIFI hotspots available around the island with internet access via a Telecom Cook Islands Wifi card. Main Telecom centre in located in Avarua, with a WIFI hotspot at the small post office near Salsa cafe, in Avarua also. Go into Telecom Cook Islands to learn more about hotspots around Raro.

H2ooh, alexander_vi and truou; I appreciate your responses. Thank you all very much.

H2ooh: Fastest is more important for me, especially since I use a soft phone on my PC as my office phone. The Telecom office in Raro looks to be #1 so far based on the speeds you experienced (.5 to 1M). Did you attempt VOIP and, if so, how was your experience? If VOIP turns out to be unreasonable on Raro, then I'll just use a cell phone.

alexander_vi: I prefer being changed by the MB, since I can spend a lot of time connected to the office without sending/receiving traffic (e.g. just reading documents). My desire for for "high speed" is for VOIP and also for testing. I do client-server development (with the test client being on my laptop) so high latency would be kind of pain, but as long as the connection is reasonably reliable it would be just a matter of waiting longer for the tests to run. I would be in the Cooks, so who cares about the waiting part, eh?

turou: Thank you very much for suggesting something I hadn't even thought about. What a great idea! My home is in North America, and my daughter is on summer break from late May until late August. My main reason for wanting an extended stay is to expose my daughter to a culture different from her own and (hopefully) have her gain an appreciation of it. I will look into the schedule; any info you can forward would be appreciated.

Best regards,
Jeff

Edited by: Umbriago

I have Skype on my travel laptop so I looked up my account to see if I used it on Raro. I didn't. But then that trip, including other stops, was for pleasure only so if I didn't have a need, I wouldn't have called anyone. Since I have zero calls, including attempted calls, I don't think connection speed had anything to do with this void. I would venture to guess that the speed should be fine for VOIP.

Umbriago #4

The only VOIP experience I have is with Vonage. I've not used it in the Cooks but it works well on a .5MB line.