Laptop email in UK and the Med

[NeilE]

After a long and expensive summer cruise in France using a UK SIM card to dial a UK ISP I wondered how others had solved the problem of cheap emails from the comfort of the boat and mobile.

I set up a French Tiscali account before I went with the idea of buying a French Pay as you Go SIM card to dial in locally. The problem was that nobody in any of the shops knew what I was talking about when I asked if their PAYG SIM card was also data enabled. I found out that Itineris wasn't, and in the last week, that Bouyges was! Would that I had found this out earlier!

Eventually we plan to spend a year or two in the Med and wonder if anyone has a list of mobile providers in the various countries who do PAYG SIM cards which allow data on their networks?

I have found an ISP which allows you to dial into a local node and pay a per minute charge - this sounds good possibility, but I am planning on getting Dial Pipex and using their global roaming service next year unless someone can come up with a better system.

The problem of the SIM cards still persists - help someone!!!

 

[chrisrixon]

I,m using vodfone GPRS and am very pleased with it. So far works in France, Spain, Port, not channel islands.

Cosys 1p per kbyte so no use for surfing but i am running a buisness and checking emails 3 times a day for about a pound a day.

HOWEVER, my mail is filtered to get rid of attachments, this is essential at 1p-k !!

You could check orange who were talking about a big free bandwidth allowance.

GPRS is always on so you can chek your email as often as you like without loggin in and no SIM card changes, very neat and relaxing!

 

[hilaryjane]

I'm glad it wasn't just me having problems. I tried to connect my laptop with a Nokia Cardphone which does voice text and internet fine in UK but no good in France. What was the ISP you mentioned?
Incidently Orange neglected to tell me that Orange top up cards bought in France were no good on my husband's mobile.
Hope you sort it, we are taking our boat to Greece via the canal du midi so any info on Italy and Greece internet etc. would be v. useful.

 

[NeilE]

Dear Hilary-Jane,

What I did was to create a new pay as you go account with Tiscali France. I gave my address as the marina I had been staying in! Then after my long summer search I discovered that Bougues Telecom cards will carry data, you can buy them in France for about 30 Euro which includes some free calls. If your French is good enough you can make the Tiscali number a favourite which is cheaper. Calls are much cheaper after 2100 local too. All this worked, but only on the last 3 days of my 7 week holiday!!!

I have now adopted a different approach. I got Pipex Broadband at home and decided on their Dial service too, which is £7 per month on top of the broadband. With that I get global roaming, so I have lots of local access points now all over the world. What I need now, when we go to the Med, is a list of phone company pay as you go cards which work with data so I can dial into the local Pipex nodes.

If you discover any, do let me know