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But now the company--which designs, engineers and installs earth stations as much as 50 feet wide--lets its technicians "roam" the Internet when they travel. They access the home network through local-access connections to ISPs around the world by using iPass' Internet roaming service.

"We are saving $10,000 a month in international and direct-dial calls," says John Overstreet, vice president of engineering and general manager of IDB Systems. "Now [costs] are not $3 to $10 a minute, but sometimes .2 cents a minute."

The roaming or remote-access Internet service supplements IDB's homegrown private VPN (virtual private network). The network uses Microsoft Corp.'s Routing and Remote Access System application, which lets tunneled clients access the servers behind the firewalls. IDB's traveling workers get local Internet access in any country where they plug in their laptops.

"Usually, a crew of three or four workers live where they are installing an earth station," Overstreet says. "During that period, they process their time sheets and expense reports" through the local iPass Internet connection to their laptops, he says.

Of course, the flip side is that IDB is at the mercy of the local ISPs. "It can be a problem if they have bottlenecks," says Overstreet. "iPass shows you the cost of the connection and the modem-speed range, and you figure out pretty quickly if an ISP is reliable."

Fortunately, roaming typically gives you multiple ISP options in different countries. With iPass, a dial "wizard" automatically updates the latest connection numbers in each region so users can select an optional ISP if one isn't performing well. Prior to adding the roaming feature to its network, IDB Systems had used a network service for travelers that required IDB to configure its own dial scripts for each country. "Scripting [to log on in each country] became too burdensome, especially for salespeople who were in a city for two or three days," says Overstreet.

Although iPass maintains relationships with ISPs in 150 countries, it still doesn't offer connections in every country or city where IDB Systems technicians work. About five to 10 percent of the locations aren't covered by iPass, so IDB technicians just dial up directly or with calling cards. "In some cases, we might have service in a country, but not in the area where the technicians are," says Overstreet. If the technicians work in such an area for more than two weeks, they sign up with a local ISP for the duration.