Trip preparations - technology

As most of the readers of this blog know, Garry and I are into technology (;-)) and we chose to be well connected as we travel.   Also, before we left, at the suggestion of son Paul, we put in place a small telephone (VOIP) solution that would help Garry's Mom.

As some of you are aware, Garry's Mom has vascular dementia.  She is on the phone to us at least 50 times per day and on a few days, more than 100 calls - always to Garry's cell phone. She calls her sister often.  We also knew she was calling many other numbers in her attempts to reach us.  A few months ago, we purchased a phone set for her that has 10 programmable buttons to try to improve the situation however, she continued to dial.

We decided to explore all options rather than take the phone away. Before leaving, we received some help from Paul to select a VOIP provider (http://www.anveo.com) to control her voice communications.   We purchased a local number from Anveo, created a call flow and configured various custom messages for different times of the day.  For example, during the lunch hours at her assisted living residence, our phone message reminds her that we are away, tells her we love her and that it's time for lunch.  Same for breakfast and dinner.  

Garry then reprogrammed the buttons on her phone to remove his cell phone and add the new VOIP number.  Next, he screwed an electrical box plate over the buttons that allowed her to dial 'freehand'.   This was far from popular with his Mom - but something we had to do.

Through Anveo's website, we can receive her messages and track the number of calls she is making to the VOIP number.  Should we see that she is spending her days calling us, we can take steps to help her.    We have already received a message from her thanking us for reminding us it's lunch time and she has already eaten.  It's working!!

For our own calls, we forwarded our cell phones to our Shaw land line.  Through the Shaw phone portal, we can receive and manage any messages that are left for us.

When we arrived, we purchased a $5 SIM card and a $20 phone plan for a month.  That gives us free calling between my brother's phone and ours.  Also, we have 60 minutes, free texting and 500MB of data.   I didn't realize that Telus offered a service to unlock older iPhones.  I did this to my iPhone 3GS about a week before we left.

We also brought Garry's cell phone, a Nook eReader and an iPad.  

We're connected!!