Phones in France & Italy

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Erico

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What is the best way to link to the net from a mobile in France & Italy?

We are planning a trip through the French canals and then Corsica & Sardinia next year. I will need email & web access via laptop to keep in touch with work and friends.

I had assumed that a dial-up account with AOL who have local POPs would be best using local pay-as-you-go simm in my phone. However, AOL have told me that if you register with AOL in the UK you still have to dial the UK number wherever you are in the world - you can't call their local POPs.

What is the cheapest/best solution?

Thanks

Eric
 
You must have spoken to a rooky at AOL. You certainly can use their local dial numbers anywhere in the world - I have being doing it in Spain, Croatia and Greece throughout this year and, using CompuServe (same company, same numbers), for 4 years before that in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Malta.

There are two decisions to be made, and they are linked: which ISP and which Mobile Network (UK or foreign).

It is often said that using a foreign SIM card will give you cheaper local calls but that is not necessarily so. There is a huge difference between what the 4 main UK networks charge you for roaming on the same foreign network. T-Mobile has the best roaming rates, O2 has the worst. In some countries you could pay as little as 18p/min to T-Mobile and 99p/min to O2 for roaming on the same network at the same time of day. The foreign network no doubt charge both UK networks the same wholesale price. O2 are just much greedier when it comes to marking the prices up. The price you pay per minute when using a foreign SIM card will obviously depend upon their specific contract. It will be a pay-as-you-go rate which is likely to be less than even T-Mobile for an in-country call, but not necessarily. Check it out first.

The main advantage of a foreign SIM card is not in making calls - it is in receiving them. With a foreign SIM card you can receive calls for nothing - on a UK network you have to pay anything up to 99p/min depending upon the network and your contract.

As far as your ISP is concerned, the main choice is between using a free UK provider or using AOL or CompuServe. The latter both have numbers throughout the world. If you go for a free UK ISP you must use one that has a number that can be dialled from abroad. Most don't. That is beacause most use 0845 numbers that cannot be called from abroad. Virgin.net do have a number that you can call from abroad so many live-aboards use them.

If you use Virgin you will have to make a call back to the UK every time you log on. If you use AOL or CompuServe you will only have to make a local call. However, you will have to pay a monthly fee to AOL/CompuServe. (AOL have a 'Light User' rate at around £5/month which I use switching over to the £16/month all-inclusive rate when back in the UK). If you only log on once a month for 2 minutes, the Virgin option would be cheaper. If you log every day, the AOL/CompuServe option would be cheaper. Somewhere in between there is a 'cross-over' point where they both cost you the same. Do your sums and also think about what you will do when in the UK.

If you go for a foreign SIM card, two potential problems to check out. If you have an O2 or Vodaphone handset you will be able to use a foreign SIM card in it straight away. However, Orange and T-Mobile 'lock' their phones so you cannot do this. You can have them unlocked, but it will cost you £30 or so. (I am told that you can find out the unlocking codes on the Internet but I have not tried this) The other thing to watch is that not all foreign SIM card only contracts allow data transmission. Some do, but you have to ask for it to be set up which may be a struggle if you do not speak the lingo.

Good luck.

MedMan
 
Thanx for the info. I already use virgin at home.
Must try mobile email next year.
Do you live on board 12mths/year or come "home" for a while in the winter!?
David
 
Our own flat is let out but we come back to the UK for 6 weeks over the 'too hot, too crowded' mid-summer period and for a couple of months over Christmas/New Year. When we come back we stay with family for part of the time and rent for the rest. That is where the AOL £16/month 24/7 package comes in so handy. I hate the AOL software but they are one of the few ISP's to have an all-in package using an 0800 number that can be used from any BT, NTL or TeleWest phone anywhere in the country. Most all-in packages are linked to one specific phone.
 
The problem I've found, experimenting with an AOL a/c, is that it won't allow you to use a robot like Outlook to fetch your emails. You have to log on with windows. This can take some time and be expensive. Also the AOL windows software is a bit of a 'dirty' installation. If you decide you don't want it you'll have a hell of a job getting your computer back to the point where you started. Sometimes I just wish we could go back to DOS!
 
Thanks for this detailed reply. I did suspect I might be talking to a rooky at AOL so I got him to check with a Supervisor. Perhaps this is what they are told to tell us.

One thing he did let slip was that it is the credit card number that they use to identify when people are using consecutive free trials so if one was really looking to save, one might find a use for all those direct mailshots offering credit cards. I guess Switch cards would be an option to!

Eric
 
Reading all this advice, it is good, but there is a better system if you want to use Outlook or Outlook Express and not the aweful AOL software, that is, subscribe to Pipex. It costs about the same as AOL, and you can use their global roaming service when you need it which has local numbers in almost every country which you can access via a local Sim card. In France the Bougues pay as you go Sim card allows Data transmission, Orange does not!
 
I quite agree about the awful AOL software, but as far as I can see Pipex would be fine in the Western Med but don't have numbers in Croatia or Turkey. Perhaps they will someday?
 
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