Internet on the move (1 Viewer)

[alivan]

Hello fellow funsters. Do you know the way to have the internet when traveling.
I will be going up and down Europe soon and I will be instaling a computor in my m/home.

Many thanks Ivan oh:

 

[barryd]

Hi

Its a well discussed topic and there are loads of threads on this if you try searching. All I can say is that its not that straight forward. You can get USB dongles or connect your laptop through your phone no problem in the UK and its cheap. Vodafone, o2, 3 etc all do them from pay as you go through to contract. I have one with Vodafone thats £15 per month for up to 3GB which is quite a lot of usage. If you use it abroad however its £10 for 24 hours but only 50MB allowance which is rubbish.

You can buy a local SIM card in the country you are in and then figure out how to get it working in your dongle but if your moving from country to country this gets tiresome and you sometimes need an address in the country your in to buy them although some get around this. France is the worst as its really expensive for mobile broadband. Many people pop into Macdonalds and places where there is free wifi and use that but thats not convenient as you have to go to flipping Macdonalds when you would prefer to just sit onsite in the van.

I felt it was like loosing an arm last summer not always having the net as you really come to rely on it both for work and for planning the trip. I have vowed to reslove it next trip and my thoughts at the moment are to purchase one of these Link Removed this will hopefully bring in wifi signals from much further. Up to a couple of miles in good conditions.

I have spoken to a few people who use this type of technology and its still hit and miss but they usually find an unsecured network to hop onto.

Big advantage of using wifi is that you only need one bit of kit for every country and it may often be free.

If only the providers could get together and offer a EU wide deal we would all be happy.

Regards
Barry

 

[paulus the woodgnome]

used my dongle for internet last year whilst in holland to keep up with the daughters trip to south africa and when we got back it had stopped working, when we phoned them up they told us that because we used it abroad (and it was only for about a hour and a bit all week) that we owed them £500,
they let us off eventually because we didn't know about the rate so be warned about the cost of internet abroad

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[paulus the woodgnome]

just a added note
the wife says that it is not how often you are on it but how many megabytes the site that you are viewing is using
we were shocked at the bill for £500

 

[hilldweller]

Hello fellow funsters. Do you know the way to have the internet when traveling.
I will be going up and down Europe soon and I will be instaling a computor in my m/home.

Many thanks Ivan oh:

Absolute minefield. Just one rip-off after another.

Best bet is WiFi.

Next best is buy local SIM. Which can be impossible if not resident in the country.

 

[paulus the woodgnome]

£250 to download a 5 minute video clip abroad
March 26th, 2009 by Rob
UK mobile broadband contract customers could be charged as much as £250 for downloading a 5 minute video clip whilst on holiday outside of the EU this summer and up to £150 within the EU.

The research carried out by broadband comparison site Broadband Expert, has revealed massive discrepancies between the UK’s top 5 mobile broadband providers for data usage abroad. Orange was the most expensive, charging £3.94 per Mb inside the EU and £6.32 per Mb outside the EU. (1Mb equates to downloading one 3 minute music track). Vodafone were found to be the cheapest provider, charging £9.99 for a day’s use of up to at 50Mb inside the EU (which equates to 20p per Mb).

It will come as a surprise to many that Vodafone is the cheapest provider, after reports last week of a British man who was billed nearly £22,000 after downloading TV programmes with a Vodafone mobile broadband card on a skiing holiday (Vodafone did waive the bill). Rob Webber, Broadband Expert’s Commercial Director, explains that whilst Vodafone’s current rates for usage abroad are by far the cheapest, the excessive Vodafone bill reported last week was due to the customer being on an old tariff contracted through a third party retailer.

Webber stated that “whilst we would like to see companies be more proactive in moving their customers away from unreasonable rates, Vodafone has come a long way in addressing this and is now by far the cheapest provider for those who want to access mobile broadband abroad.”

Webber believes that mobile broadband providers need to be more consistent in their charges and communicate them more clearly. Webber explains that the “information relating to mobile broadband charges abroad is often hard to find on many providers websites leaving customers open to excessive charges.“

Webber urges consumers planning on using mobile broadband abroad this summer to carefully read the small print on their contract to avoid any nasty surprises. He also recommends only light usage, such as checking emails and general web surfing and to completely avoid downloading videos and music whilst abroad.

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