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Hi

Could anyone tell me what I would need to go online when away in the caravan. I don't wanna do downloading etc just check emails and ebay. I have a laptop and a contract mobile. I have no pc card slots on my laptop so I'm guessing I would have to link via blue tooth some how. I'm o2 contract. What would I require?

Ben

Quote: Originally posted by phopwood on 19/4/2008

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If you have wireless on your laptop, then go to McDonald's and buy a cup of coffee and you get free internet all day long.

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Mobile Broadband can be a bit expensive so GPRS should be good enough for surfing the net and emails, so check your service providers charges and connect via bluetooth. I use an aircard (gprs) in my laptop with a vodafone sim card which cost £1 day max.

I now have a 'blackberry' (BT employee offer) with free Openzone and GPRS access, it cost £5 per month with 50 free mins and 50 free txt as well as the Broadband access so I will be trying this out next week on the Llŷn Peninsula. 

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For using a laptop in both France and the UK, what is the cheapest method of doing this?  So far, I have been put off by tales of excruciating costs.

Bertie.

Quote: Originally posted by The 2 Tops on 19/4/2008

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For using a laptop in both France and the UK, what is the cheapest method of doing this?  So far, I have been put off by tales of excruciating costs.

Bertie.

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Bertie

I think its best to think of the UK and Europe as separate.  The main technolgies available in the UK are either WiFi or Mobile Broadband. Increasingly the latter is becoming better value, from £10 a month and you can access it through either a USB dongle or your mobile phone. It will really depend on how much you want to use it. WiFi is fine for fairly limited use. An example is Caravan Club sites where you can buy and hours use for £6 but you can also use the system by signing up online for as little as £2.25 for 15 minutes. Now before anyone says thats massively expensive, if all you need is a shot time to check banks accounts and down load e-mails spending £2.25 is cheaper than buying a card that lasts a hour and not used!  If you want to spend an hour or more online then Mobile Broadband is a better option. Of course you can always go to the loccal McD's if there is one but most of use prefer to use our laptops in the comfort of our vans.

In Europe its a different kettle of fish. To use you UK Mobile Broadband is pretty expensive, although you can hunt around for some deals. On balance WiFi is likely the more economic answer but like the UK the price difference is massive. I have been on campsites where it has ranged from free to €8 an hour. The good news is that the European Telecoms Commissioner has given telecoms companies until July to reduce prices for roaming data and texts so like telephone calls you could see a decent reduction in prices across the EU. My advice would be to work out what you want to use the connection for. For web browsing you need a decent download allowance that WiFi or Mobile Broadband gives you otherwise it is either expensive or slow.

David

Hi at the moment you can get the Vodaphone dongle for £15 a month for 3bytes from Phones 4 U, the dongle comes free.

I had a Vodaphone 3G card before, but it didn't fit my new laptop I had always been pleased with Vodaphone so after reading and also my friend telling me she wasn't that happy with the 03 contract I decided to stick with Vodaphone...............tried it last night and all seemed fine.

The 03 coverage can be poor in some areas and I knew I would feel fed up with intermittent coverage.

Hi Btwellz! You can use a wifi laptop at McDonalds, Wetherspoons and, I think, Burgerkings! Lots of other places, too, but I believe you have to pay at many. At the McDonalds I tried, the laptop works in the car park, so you can run your laptop on a cigar-lighter adaptor as you scoff, slurp & surf!

In the end, I went for a Three dongle for mobilke broadband - and it's brilliant! I didn't go for a contract, but pay as you go. In this cae the dongle was £100, and you just buy monthly gB credit when you need it!

Johnny

 I see c&c club site at Boroughbridge has wi-fi this year along with a few other club sites as I have got a laptop with wi-fi can anyone tell me what is charged at these sites and how do we go about getting it.