Comments on: How do I use my laptop abroad without going broke?

Question: How do I use my laptop abroad without going broke?

unconvention — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:05:17 -0800

What's the best option for wireless broadband in France and Portugal?

I work pretty much from my laptop, and the opportunity for spending a few weeks in a holiday home in France has cropped up. As long as I've got broadband, I'm good to go, I won't need to take time off work, and will still be able to enjoy the good life, etc, etc.

The problem is that the holiday home doesn't have broadband, and the owners say they've been told it can't have it (old exchange maybe?). They do get good mobile coverage.

I looked into a USB GSM doodad I can plug into my laptop from Orange UK - £15/month for 2Gb per month but an additional charge of £8/mb if roaming abroad. At my daily usage of ~ 50mb, that's £400/day. Carphone Warehouse say there are probably deals with other networks that would be cheaper than Orange, but they're still in the insane price bracket.

I suppose the obvious solution would seem to be to sign up with a French mobile network and therefore take advantage of their domestic rates. So question 1 is: does anyone have good/bad recommendations on French ISPs specifically for this kind of GSM service?

To make matters more complex, I also have the option of spending some time in Portugal with a similar kind of deal - only the place in Portugal doesn't even have a landline, let alone broadband, leading to question 2: does anyone know of any solution that would allow me to work from both France and Portugal without breaking the bank?

By: derMax

derMax — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:04:32 -0800

I run into this problem every year when we go to the south of France for a holiday. I also looked into Orange France, but the price was too much. We once stayed in a great, cheap gite in the middle of vineyards, and I ended up commuting to a hotel in a town about 20 minutes drive away and borrowing their Wifi (they let me use it for the price of a cup of coffee, which I needed anyway, and I also left a tip every time.)

Being without continous internet access does allow you to really relax and take a true holiday though.

I know this does not answer your question really, but eventually I just found holiday homes that do have ADSL. They are not that hard to find these days. Try looking on homelidays.com. I don't have any information about Portugal since I've never been there.

By: stereo

stereo — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:32:50 -0800

Most (Every ?) Mc Donald's in France has free wi-fi. IP over DNS seems to work over the open Neuf WiFi networks you see all over the place in cities. Your French friends could get 50 hours of dial-up internet for €15, or you could get free access and pay the telephone charges.