Internet In Europe

biggirafe

Guest
I'll be travelling in Europe this year and would like to have easy access to the internet. So far I have concluded that there are the following ways of connecting,

  • Free WiFi Hotspots such as MacDonalds
  • Pay for WiFi Hot Spots such as on campsites
  • use a mobile phone and get a 56k connection
  • use a mobile phone and get a 3g connection
  • use a usb dongle and get a 3g connection

what I'd like to know is whats the cheapest way to get a connection using a mobile or 3g dongle. I've read lots on this and TBH the info seems to be patchy, I do know because we provide dongles at work that the costs in Europe can be atronomical, last year I used my Vodaphone dongle at a customers site in Holland and ran up a £300+ bill during 1 days work :eek: turns out I connected to an unapproved network not the approved one :(

I'm sure those of you who travel a lot in europe know the best and cheapest way to do this :D
 
Well Big G, It is a hunch, and I cant prove it but I think this might be the way.

I have a 3 g dongle for the UK , but as soon as I require roaming ? on a French network etc...I get caned.

Wi FI on campsites as a rule is exhorbitant a profit centre for the owners

I will be stopping in France for a while so I intend to buy a 'french' dongle.

It has occured to me not possibly as practical for yourself although perhaps the cheapeast solution if you park up in Portugal for a few months.

Tourist information office btw often have free internet, but the keyboards are not qwerty.

I too am interested in the answer to this one, from those members located on the continent

Channa
 
channa said:
Well Big G, It is a hunch, and I cant prove it but I think this might be the way.

I have a 3 g dongle for the UK , but as soon as I require roaming ? on a French network etc...I get caned.

Wi FI on campsites as a rule is exhorbitant a profit centre for the owners

I will be stopping in France for a while so I intend to buy a 'french' dongle.

It has occured to me not possibly as practical for yourself although perhaps the cheapeast solution if you park up in Portugal for a few months.

Tourist information office btw often have free internet, but the keyboards are not qwerty.

I too am interested in the answer to this one, from those members located on the continent

Channa
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I too am thinking that getting a dongle once in France is the best option, does anyone have any info on the tarrifs and where you buy them in France? we were there last year but I can't remember seeing a mobile shop of the sort we have in the uk.
 
Yes there are just the same type of phone shops as we have here, I have a '3' dongle too but its the same model as orange or probably vodafone or O2 (but thats just a guess), so, I would guess if you bought a sim in France or Spain and put it in your UK dongle it would work. If anyone wants to try this cheaply I bought a '3' dongle and sim when we returned to the UK last April with 12gig? prepaid, we found a house in August so the dongle is now unused with over half the credit still unused, it must be used before April when it expires so first £40 secures. pm me.
 
guerdeval said:
I have a '3' dongle too but its the same model as orange or probably vodafone or O2 (but thats just a guess), so, I would guess if you bought a sim in France or Spain and put it in your UK dongle it would work.
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Thanks for the shop info, I guess I was not really looking when we were last in France.

Unfortunatley just like telephones USB dongles are locked to 1 network, so if I took my Vodaphone dongle and put a French Orange sim into it it would not work, But you can unlock them with software on your pc to make them network free.

The big issue I have heard is that the french want french ID when you buy a phone or sim card, I guess they do in the uk as well ? Can anyone confirm this?
 
France is a nightmare and there is no cheap way to do this anymore. There used to be a Mobicart sim that was reasonable value but it doesnt exist in the format it was. Now I think its almost as expensive as using your vodfone UK dongle £10 per day.

Other countries are better but you have the issue of getting different sims.

In the end I didnt use my dongle but connected my UK vodafone phone and connected to the very low bandwidth webmail. This meant I could keep in touch with business emails every couple of days and the charges were minimal as it was just text but as soon as you start browsing it goes mental with the charges.

The only solution I am now considering is a RepeatIT directional wifi antenna. HAvent got one yet but it will bring in wifi signals from several miles away so hopefully you will find a few unsecured ones and of course it will work anywhere without having to buy sims in each country

Cheers
BD
 
barryd said:
The only solution I am now considering is a RepeatIT directional wifi antenna. HAvent got one yet but it will bring in wifi signals from several miles away so hopefully you will find a few unsecured ones and of course it will work anywhere without having to buy sims in each country

Cheers
BD
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Good idea, plenty of people don't make their connection secure. there are 3 around me at home.

Have you looked at Satalite?. I have but they all seem to be quite pricy but having said that you could also use it as your home connection as well, the isseu as I see it is that you need a phone line therefore mobile for the uplink.
 
A motorhoming pal of mine has satellite broadband in his truck and he thinks its great, it also doubles as a normal TV dish but not at the same time, its a German system, the dish remotely finds the satellite somewhere over Eastern Europe and the reception is great even in Portugal and Spain, the downside is cost but he uses it for business so worth it to him, I think its about £1500 a year up front plus the equipment.
 
biggirafe said:
Good idea, plenty of people don't make their connection secure. there are 3 around me at home.

Have you looked at Satalite?. I have but they all seem to be quite pricy but having said that you could also use it as your home connection as well, the isseu as I see it is that you need a phone line therefore mobile for the uplink.
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And there are ways even if it is secure (he he he) not that I would do anything like that of course and neither would you despite us both being in the IT industry, oh no!

Alden do one I think for £4K and I know someone who has one but the subscriptions are quite expensive. However they double up as a TV jobby.

I am a tad reluctant to add more space age stuff to the roof along with the Camos and the main reason is that I am hoping that the phone companies will get their act together and provided cheaper 3G EU wide connections.

I hope your more succesful at finding a solution before you go than I was and I would make it a priority as the Internet is crucial to your trip. We missed loads of stuff through lack of info and next time it will be sorted.

Cheers
Baz
 
Most librarys & Tourist infos in Europe were free when we we out. plus it's normally pennies for an hours worth at most internet cafes.

B
 
Couldn't agree more Barry. When will the phone co's get there act together?

It depends what you are looking for. How often do you need it and for how long? How much would you like it considering current home use? And how secure do you need it to be? Would you like Skype for instance?

Satellite internet access is expensive but only in the installation cost you can get access after that for about £50 a month.

Yes we're the ones Barry is referring to BTW!

Tish
 
barryd said:
The only solution I am now considering is a RepeatIT directional wifi antenna. HAvent got one yet but it will bring in wifi signals from several miles away so hopefully you will find a few unsecured ones and of course it will work anywhere without having to buy sims in each country

Cheers
BD
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Only problem here is that my laptop has the wireless built in so there is nowhere to connect a signal booster to.
 
Norris said:
Only problem here is that my laptop has the wireless built in so there is nowhere to connect a signal booster to.
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It doesnt matter. The Repeat IT and other devices similar plug into the USB port (they are USB powered) and they dont boost your laptops wifi but bring in their own. When I get round to it I will road test one and report the results.

The Vodofone Dongle I have which boasts the best coverage in the UK is rubbish down here. From leaving Yorkshire on 21 Dec, going to Hayling Island, Isle of Wight and right along the south coast to Cornwall I have only had a 3G signal once near Exeter. I have always had a connection but a 56k 2G connection which is crap. Takes 2 hours to compile a list of places to stay and go rather than 20 min on 3G.

It is clear to me though that having the internet (despite the speed) is perhaps the most crucial thing to an enjoyable touring trip almost (but not quite) as important as remembering to bring the lovely Mrs D so it has to be sorted!

Cheers
BD
 
barryd said:
The Vodofone Dongle I have which boasts the best coverage in the UK is rubbish down here. From leaving Yorkshire on 21 Dec, going to Hayling Island, Isle of Wight and right along the south coast to Cornwall I have only had a 3G signal once near Exeter. I have always had a connection but a 56k 2G connection which is crap. Takes 2 hours to compile a list of places to stay and go rather than 20 min on 3G.

It is clear to me though that having the internet (despite the speed) is perhaps the most crucial thing to an enjoyable touring trip almost (but not quite) as important as remembering to bring the lovely Mrs D so it has to be sorted!

Cheers
BD
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Hi Barry
I have Vodaphone you probably have tried this but with mine I switch the setttings to '3G only' and it will ignore stronger 2g signals and sometimes gives me a poor 3g connection which is better than a good 2g connection. I've been sat on the roof of the van before now :eek:

TBH I think I'm the same whenever I want to get any information the first thought is 'I'll google that' :)

But working in IT I do find it quite stressful not been able to get internet, Nicole gets quite anoyed as I get obsessed with finding somewhere I can pickup a signal.

If we can't survive without internet we should seek help :eek:
 
I think there are some systems like BT FON where you share your internet & in turn you can share other peoples internet. Most rely on you having an internet fixed line but I think that they are throughtout the world.

France I always find difficult finding unsecured connections, Germany & Belgium are much easier. If you are looking to piggyback on an unsecured system then housing estates or blocks of flats usually are easy to find unsecured wifi. Portugal we found wifi almost everywhere, many tourist information had internet you could use & if you ask they will give you a logon ID & password to use your own PC. I have a couple of USB wifi dongles, I find I can pick up signals from much further away with these Poor Man's WiFi"WIFRY","WOKFI" or "WOKTENNA"

There are always plenty of interenet cafes where you can use your own equipment, but you should always take care with these. Use your judgment if you are accessing your bank details etc. but if you are just sending emails or browsing the web you should be ok. Found in Spain that we could get online for about 1 to 5 euros an hour. Many campsites also have wifi but these can sometimes be extortionate.
 
Kontiki said:
I have a couple of USB wifi dongles, I find I can pick up signals from much further away with these Poor Man's WiFi"WIFRY","WOKFI" or "WOKTENNA"
Click to expand...

:D I like the site, I don't feel so silly now having a WOK strategically placed behind my Access Point in the house so that I can work in the van at full power and not send a signal into the neighbours house :)

I've been looking at this site
at danets, we enhance your wireless experience: YAGI WiFi antenna
They seem to have some good kit thats well priced. :)

As you say a USB Wifi connection will be better than built in and with a roof arial its going to give you a much better chance of getting onto a network, Not too sure I want more holes in the roof though :confused:

As Barry said I don't worry too much about a network being 'Unsecured' there is plenty of software out there that will get you onto a secure network. Not that I would actually do it but being in the industry its important to know about these things :rolleyes:
 
A couple of other sites that you IT guys can make sense of and perhaps explain if worth exploring.

Devicescape Wi-Fi | Home

and the better one apparently ?

FON

3 euros for a 24 hour pass.


I too wouldnt piggyback even unsecured sites without authorisation, one or two people been in bother so far in this country. And I am not sure of how foreign authorities view the practise...essentially it amounts to theft.

Channa
 
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