internet use/access when travelling in Britain and Europe

[faz26]

With our limited knowledge of all things computer-wise and wanting to have access to the internet (and Skype) whilst travelling spending a fortune on connections, has anyone any advice or experience to help us out please. We have an Apple Macbook Pro at home and have only used Apple machines.

Any help/suggestions would be most gratefully received

[francisgraham]

I'm assuming that you have wi-fi on your Mac? If so it's worth looking out for a MacDonald's whilst driving. In France I stopped three or four times just outside, or on, a Macdonald's car park, and picked up the free wif-fi that they now have in most of their restaurants.

A great help is a wi-fi booster, which is like an aerial that plugs into your computer and boosts the wi-fi reception tremendously. You can buy them from eBay or Amazon for a a reasonable price.

If you wish to be independent then it's a dongle from one of the major cell phone networks but in my experience they are unreliable and fairly expensive.

Do you have a cell phone on contract? If so there is another very viable option and that's to upgrade to the latest smart-phones. I have a Samsung Galaxy S2. It's the very latest and is brilliant. Very thin, superb screen and ideal for browsing the web or emailing. I get 300 minutes, 300 texts and unlimited web browsing in the UK for £20.42 a month although I had to pay £130 towards the phone. The phone is free if you're a heavy user paying say, £30 a month. When I go abroad I can get 50 MB of download data for £10 and it lasts a month. That will cover all my email, browsing and the odd Skype call, which can be done using the smart-phone.

But here's the clever bit - if I want to do some serious browsing I use my netbook with its proper keyboard and screen. On my smart-phone I have a 'tethering' option. This allows me to set up a wi-fi zone from the smart-phone, so I can use the netbook on the wi-fi field that's being generated by the phone. This data download on the netbook comes out of the smart-phone data allowance so there's no extra cost.

Most sites I used in France this year offered free wi-fi, but it tended to be within a few yards of reception. If it's site-wide there's often a modest charge.

There's no doubt that the number of free wi-fi hotspots will increase dramatically over the next year or so, which should make life much easier.

If your laptop doesn't have wi-fi you can buy a wi-fi dongle for next to nothing. They're just like a USB stick and plug into a USB socket.

Edited to say: Silly me, you did say that you're an Apple fan. However the iPhone will do everything that my smart-phone will do, including creating a wi-fi zone that you can log onto with your laptop. With the iPhone 5 coming out soon there will be some very good deals on the current model.

[bolero boy]

Agree with most of the above, we have just had 10 weeks in France and used Mc Donalds on a number of occasions. Site wifi can vary in quality and cost so think before signing up for something too expensive.

I have a smartphone that does as described and in the UK this is fine but roaming charges make this expensive in Europe.

We have dongle (from 3) which works well also in the UK.

I also have a second dongle which was being used for my m-in-law to 'try broadband' who now has a landline system installed. This dongle (from Orange) has been converted to PAYG and can be used at the rate of 5p per megabyte which is quite good value, can be used as required and get billed at end of month.

It is possible to get a (say) French payg sim and use this in a smartphone (along with tethering) to drive your mac's wifi.

[peterjl]

Hi

 

I dual boot my macbook so i have a choice.- as an aside Sophos do a good free antivirus for ibooks(i would agree mac is better for some things but some useful programmes are better on windows)

 

Also use an ipod touch which instant on so when i wander around a town i can usually pick internet up at bars and restaurants free of charge - easy to check emails and the web down load podcasts and the papers i subscribe to.

 

Many campsites have wifi - the odd thing is the expensive ones charge a fortune but on lots of the cheaper ones (acsi card sites) it has been free - if its free or v cheap we use if its expensive i can always go to MacDonalds!

 

On balance over the last 5 weeks in france spain & portugal we found free wifi about 40% of the time without resorting to Macdonalds - this means we log in about every 3 days or less on average which for us is about right

 

Peter

[p0930]

I bought a Zoom wireless router into which you insert a dongle of your choice. It translates the software from the dongle and operates just like a wireless router in your house. This means you can purchase a PAYG dongle wherever you are and directly access the Internet. I am currently using it with a 3 dongle and it is excellent. They are about £70 from Maplins and can be used on mains or battery.

[lennyhb]

This subject has been covered on loads of threads do a couple of searches on "wifi" & "dongles" you will come up with all the info you need.

 

Only thing I will say is don't us a UK dongle abroad unless you are very rich.

[Keith T]

We are currentlyin France, and here on this site,Wifi is not only free and unlimitied but mostly good signal and speed.....elsewhere we have been quoted (did not use) €40 for 4 weeks use........Ok,unlimited, but the signal did not reach our pitch, and talking to others who had used it, they found it was unreliable. Macdonalds seems to be the general stand-by, thats Ok if you happen to be parking nearby, but if -as we do mostly - you leave the van onsite, you don' nt necessarily want to cart the laptop around with you!

In UK we only have a 3 mobile dongle, so can use it pretty much everywhere with generall good signal- but,as mentioned above, do NOT use this away from UK!!