Internet In Europe

[biggirafe]

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

Hi Channa
Both of these look usable, The devicescape looks to be totaly free which can't be bad
The FON network is bigger as far as I know but you do need to buy one of their routers about £80.I might be wrong but I do not think you can just be a free end user.

The downside with both of these is you need to be in a Hotspot to connect to the internet and you need to know where those hotspots are. But if they are added to an arsenal of free tools then why not?

I've looked on their maps and there are hotspots within 1 mile of me in Gloucester if its the same in Europe then they could be ok but you would need to plan ahead to be in places with a hotspot and ensure you have POI's so that you can get to a hot spot, having said that if you couple this with a High Gain Antena then maybe your onto a winner

 

[Pioneer]

Hi Biggarffe,

Whilst travelling Europe a few years ago, we found no problems for unsecured wifi in Northern Europe, Scandanavia, most villages, schools, collages, universities, if you sit outside, log on. I also used yahoo messenger to talk to friends and family (free). Hotels only to pleased to allow you to logon in the reception area, have a beer or coffee while logged on, just ask, if you don't ask you don't get
Some unsecured wifi available throughout Germany, Belgium, Holland, but then it gets harder and harder to find as you travel south to Spain, Portugal.
I found signals available in Austria and Swiss, at collages and Uni's.
I think Mcdonalds was about 5-6euros for an hour? at the time. Rip off!
If you have good anti virus software installed you should have no problems.
For the mobile I use a Portugese sim on vodaphone, cheap as chips on calls, but not used for a while now so may have changed the tarrif, soon as I get through the tunnel, swap sims over and pay your money.
I am now with BT and Fon, so will be trying this system out sometime in the near future. 250 mins free/month.

Regards,
Bill.

 

[guerdeval]

In France there are many free wi-fi spots that you just stumble across, mostly bars and hotels ,you have to suffer the adverts popping up every minute or so, if you're in Huelgoat, Brittany there are 3! , hopefully typical of most small towns by now.

 

[biggirafe]

I am now with BT and Fon, so will be trying this system out sometime in the near future. 250 mins free/month.

Regards,
Bill.

Hi Bill
Thanks for the info.

Fon looks very good if you have an account, they started in Spain so spain coverage should be very good, let me know how you get on please I might just invest in this myself

 

[AndyC]

PeekFon

Don't know much about it but this might be of interest for those who just need email access in Europe: PeekFON mobile email everywhere

AndyC

 

[t&s]

3g for me

for the laptop a 3g dongle
one seperate one purchaced in each country you visit is the cheapest way we found
available in most hypermarkets or the like or local phone shops
atach directly to your laptop away you go no need to connect to the phone.
for the mobiles we use tesco mobile abroad and find it works well everyehere we have been

 

[maingate]

Maybe I am a bit out of date here but when we were in Spain etc. on holiday, we bought a phone card from a local shop and used public phone boxes.

Is this no longer an option or just too old fashioned? It used to work out fairly cheaply when ringing home.

 

[Norris]

If we can't survive without internet we should seek help

You could probably get help online!!

 

[barryd]

Maybe I am a bit out of date here but when we were in Spain etc. on holiday, we bought a phone card from a local shop and used public phone boxes.

Is this no longer an option or just too old fashioned? It used to work out fairly cheaply when ringing home.

Go to Bed!

I heard about Fon. Never once saw a signal in France from one though. The issue I have is that we often (as do many I guess) find ourselves in some wild spot or Aire out in the sticks. You are seldom parked for the day / night in a town centre where you may pick up a wifi point. I found that if I had to do a job which required remote access to a PC in the UK it meant either jumping on the bike and driving to the nearest wifi spot or going to a Ti or internet cafe.

This trip we are on has proved that the internet is invaluable and despite it being mainly slow it has made the trip better and thanks to tracking the weather possible!

I am going to crack this and will start with the wifi RepeatIT antenna which I Will road test and report back.

BD

 

[biggirafe]

Go to Bed!

I heard about Fon. Never once saw a signal in France from one though.
I am going to crack this and will start with the wifi RepeatIT antenna which I Will road test and report back.

BD

Hi Barry
Have a look at this, I suspect the reason we can't see the signals is because they are not broadcasting their SSID, there are flipping hundreds of access points around me, I've been reading up this afternoon pretty much every BT wifi basestation is now FON activated.
FON Maps

I think if you coupled a FON account with a powerful USB wifi card and exterior arial or directional arial you would be onto somthing useful without spending a fortune. Joining is just a case of buying the base station about £39 quid at the moment.

What I'd like to know is when I'm travelling how long can I turn off my base station and my FON account stays active?

 

[Channa]

Hi Barry
Have a look at this, I suspect the reason we can't see the signals is because they are not broadcasting their SSID, there are flipping hundreds of access points around me, I've been reading up this afternoon pretty much every BT wifi basestation is now FON activated.
FON Maps

I think if you coupled a FON account with a powerful USB wifi card and exterior arial or directional arial you would be onto somthing useful without spending a fortune. Joining is just a case of buying the base station about £39 quid at the moment.

What I'd like to know is when I'm travelling how long can I turn off my base station and my FON account stays active?

Well come on then that man ....gave you a lead share how we do it without sharing a shower with strange men !!!

You know you would miss my teasings !!!

Channa

 

[dorset boy]

wi-fi

If you use free wi-fi be carefull of hackers and keep your lap top empty, I carry all my work/info on a portable drive.

Phone home? just use Skype, cheap and easy and free pc to pc.

rgds Mike

 

[maingate]

If anyone will be doing online banking abroad then HSBC has a good system.

They issue a dongle that randomly generates a passcode which is effective for a short period and will be useless to hackers.

barryd,

I know something that you do not and you will not be happy when you find out.

 

[biggirafe]

Well come on then that man ....gave you a lead share how we do it without sharing a shower with strange men !!!

You know you would miss my teasings !!!

Channa

Joining is just a case of buying the base station about £39 quid at the moment.

Thats it Channa go to the website for FON as far as I can see you buy a base station then plug it into your broadband conection at home. I would expect that they will also send you some software that will enable you to connect your laptop to any other FON base station that you are near to. So when you travel about its just a case of looking at their map and parking near a base station. From what I can see you do need to plug the base station in to activate the service.

FON Maps

In short your base station will allow other people to securely use your broadband conection and you can then use other peoples. From what I have read you can decide how much of your broadband you share and its done in a secure way so that people using your connection can not break into your network, we do a similar thing at work so that we can have multiple networks using the same infrastructure.

FON

Using their map I can see plenty of people are sharing all over europe. If you were to use a big arial on your van you will get signals from further away, just like having an arial on the roof of your house opposed to having a small one on top of your telly.

I have not used this service and can only tell you what I have read on the internet, I am an IT manager so I can say the idea is very very good and the number of base stations seems to be very large, they have a tie in with BT in the UK and all BT base stations now have FON built in. But you do not have to be using a BT Connection you can plug the base station into any connection.

Like all WIFI you do need to be in a hot spot which if you think about your own WiFi at home is often only 20 - 40 feet away from the base station but with so many BT connections in the UK this should not be difficult. Looking on their map it would seem this has really taken off in Spain and France.

With the map page I have found you sometimes need to press F5 to get it to load properly, then zoom into your postcode I was surprised to find that I am surrounded by FON base stations, I think they must be BT Broadband users who have FON activated basestations, its automatic with BT now unless you choose to opt out

FON Maps

 

[barryd]

The Fon server seems to be playing up right now but if your right Mark that they are everywhere then as you suggested coupled with a good antenna then this is another option and for £39 its worth a go. I could get one for our office and try it along with the antenna. If it dont work then ill just flea bay it or stick it in room 101 (the garage of junk)

barryd,

I know something that you do not and you will not be happy when you find out.

Ok then Ill bite. Out with it paingate.

BD

 

[biggirafe]

The Fon server seems to be playing up right now


in room 101 (the garage of junk)
BD

Morning barry, must do some work soon

FON server is good for me,

Room 101, yes I had one of them, 20 years worth of HiFi kit and odds n sods that I had bought for pc's over the years, we've been clearing it out, about £2,500 made from flee bat so far.

Nicole scoffed when I got my old LP's down. She stopped laughing when a Jimi Hendrix LP hit £30 quid in about 4 hours

 

[barryd]

Dont think the contents of our garage will fetch that much! Well actually it might as there is the 11ft dingy and outboard I bought when we got the van and used once, theres a windsurfer in there somewhere and an antique sowing machine. hmm.

At least you have some work to do, so far this year I have flogged a monitor and appart from a bit of support work and a job lined up for next week, naff all happening. Which is great as work gets in the way of my MH life!

Cheers

 

[biggirafe]

Joining is just a case of buying the base station about £39 quid at the moment.

Thats it Channa go to the website for FON as far as I can see you buy a base station then plug it into your broadband conection at home. I would expect that they will also send you some software that will enable you to connect your laptop to any other FON base station that you are near to. So when you travel about its just a case of looking at their map and parking near a base station. From what I can see you do need to plug the base station in to activate the service.

FON Maps

In short your base station will allow other people to securely use your broadband conection and you can then use other peoples. From what I have read you can decide how much of your broadband you share and its done in a secure way so that people using your connection can not break into your network, we do a similar thing at work so that we can have multiple networks using the same infrastructure.

FON

Using their map I can see plenty of people are sharing all over europe. If you were to use a big arial on your van you will get signals from further away, just like having an arial on the roof of your house opposed to having a small one on top of your telly.

I have not used this service and can only tell you what I have read on the internet, I am an IT manager so I can say the idea is very very good and the number of base stations seems to be very large, they have a tie in with BT in the UK and all BT base stations now have FON built in. But you do not have to be using a BT Connection you can plug the base station into any connection.

Like all WIFI you do need to be in a hot spot which if you think about your own WiFi at home is often only 20 - 40 feet away from the base station but with so many BT connections in the UK this should not be difficult. Looking on their map it would seem this has really taken off in Spain and France.

With the map page I have found you sometimes need to press F5 to get it to load properly, then zoom into your postcode I was surprised to find that I am surrounded by FON base stations, I think they must be BT Broadband users who have FON activated basestations, its automatic with BT now unless you choose to opt out

FON Maps

Further to this post I have spoken to another IT manager I know who uses this service. A few things he clarified

If you unplug the base station at home you will not be able to login to someone elses base station. So no good for fulltimers unless you know someone who will house your FON base station for you.

The speed you allow other to connect to your base station denotes the speed that you can connect to another base station, so if you are tight and only allow a slow connection at home for others that is all you will get when you are out and about.

The FON base stations are quite a weak signal so you do need to park quite close to a lot of them to get a good signal. A decent arial on your laptop does solve this.

Anywhere that has BT Openzone now allows you to connect, so this is a lot of motorway service stations and coffee shops.

He has no complaints and uses it a lot when out and about

 

[Channa]

So no good for fulltimers unless you know someone who will house your FON base station for you.

This is starting to make sense casting my mind back, when I first went full time.

When I had a house I had bt broadband, But because I no longer owned a land line I had to terminate the service.( cost me a lot of money too)

So in your case,futureintentions, if you donate the box to someone trustworthy, and offer their address for all intents and purposes as your new residence. ( for example I use a parental address for bank accounts insurance etc) there is no reason why you couldnt use the fon network.

You in effect provide them with free broadband, they pay for calls outside the monthly allowance.So two for one as if were.

£25 -£30 per month assuming no hidden roaming ? charges, Sounds aperfect solution to me.

In my case I still think it is the dongle idea.

Channa

 

[barryd]

Well thats not an issue for me as I live in the middle of nowhere so would gladly share full bandwidth as nobody will want to use it and when I am away I always leave the aDSL line on and connected anyway. If I full time I will just register or give the box to my sister (she wont know what it is anyway).

Bit worrying about the signal being crap but only testing with the wifi antenna will show if it works. BT Openzone I have picked up. Are you saying if your a FON member you will be able to login and use it? Are there any others in say France you can log into. I remember picking one up all the time in France in most towns but I cant for the life of me remember the network. There may be loads of options for subscription wifi. Just needs a bit more exploring.

Not sure how to mount the repeatIT unit. I think it will work inside the van but clearly would be better pole mounted outside. You couldnt really drive with it though. Ideally I would like it mounted so I can turn it from inside the van and point it in the general direction of say a town a mile away. Dont really want to be hanging wires out of the window. Problem is I can sort out IT solutions but I am crap at drilling holes and stuff.

BD