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UK WiFi hotspots and roaming

Caravanning usage touring the country.

As I understand it to use a laptop on the move around the country we need to find Wifi hotspots and use something like a TP-Link 54Mbps Wireless USB Adapter (£8 from SVP). To use this we need an ISP that allows access to these hotspots. This would allow us to access our webmail, and occasional surfing for info about the area we are in at the time. PAYG would be best for us as we rarely use it, and it would be minutes at a time initially.

Questions.

1: Is there one access provider that covers the country, as currently it appears there are hundreds! Which provider would you recommend?

2: What is the best USB adapter I should get? (P4 laptop running XP)

3: How far, ish, would you be able to work from a hotspot?

Thanks in anticipation for your help.

Reply to
Tel
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You can download a list of all the paid for hot spots mostly operated by TheCloud. They are mainly at Public Places. Hotels and Airports, Pubs.

BT have now partnered with FON and that allows owners of BT homehubs to reflash their routers if they are on BT Broadband. After that their router has two channels one for the client and the other as a BT Openzone hot spot.

In Stonehaven tonight there were 4 of these showing on one street.

You can either log in as a BTOpenzone or TMobile or TheCloud account holder. The other way in these hotspots is to become a FON and this gives you free access to them.

IMHO outside buildings the connection is at best marginal to Ok but being inside the building is much better.

You really want a separate aerial and a connectable wifi adapter to get a connection from some distance. Look at

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for this kit. It will usually be ether a USB or PCMCIA adaptor.

A friend had a Repeatit and used it from his boat around Europe and the Canaries with some success

Eddie

Reply to
That Bloke

Do these places (pubs. McDs etc) usually have a power supply one can use as well, or are you expected to be on battery?

Reply to
Sue

Most places I have been there is no power, pubs can be ok sometimes.

If in a car look at Inverters

Look at

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I use this one Can get hot and cut out to cool down, but works fine.

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Reply to
Paul

Was in McDonalds today, and no they don't have a power supply usually. I had a full signal (5 bars), and good speed. Outside in the car park the signal dropped to 4 bars, but worked just as well.

Reply to
Tel

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