I would like to be able to get connected to the internet while on holiday in Europe using my own equipment. My initial thoughts are a notebook + a mobile phone, what should I look out for? At the moment I do not have a mobile phone so was wondering how one would connect, I wanted to have a good idea before asking in the mobile phone shops as I don't beleive I would get good advice. Also what is the connection speeds like?
Many thanks
I have used a nokia 6230, and a 5yr old Advent laptop, just to prove it can be done, I used the IR port because it was there and I wasn't going to spend any money on a bluetooth adapter!! It worked quite well on GPRS about the same speed as dial up. I am on contract with orange and pay a £5 a month for 4MB (IIRC) I think the problem would come with roaming abroad the costs may be prohibitive for casual use. I bought a 54g pcmia wireless adapter off Ebay and If you have a PAYG with someone like BT and roam to hotspots cafe's hotels etc it may be cheaper, but having seen what it costs per hour I am not so sure about that!!
Or leave the laptop at home and live with the withdrawal symptoms and 1000+ emails when you get home, on second thoughts!!!
Des
I've used my Tecra and Sony-Ericsson IR connection at home and once in South Africa where the landline connection was terrible. For Europe I have PAYG accounts in a number of countries - Google 'free ISP' - which give dial up accces at local call rates. Where are you going on holiday?
Brian
Spain, Costa Blanca.
Have a look at
I've had an account with them for a few years now - internet, webmail and POP3 and you can even use them in the UK as a backup ISP.
Brian
Thanks Brian,
I'm a little confused, what service is the 'mobile' usage one? RTB ?
Regards
A lot of mobile phones can be connected via cable, IR or bluetooth to laptops or PCs', my old nokia 6310 for example I could use with my laptop, using either cable or IR, When I got the 6230 it had IR , so it was easy* to set up using the modem software downloaded from Nokia. It just made it easy for me using IR because I could do it without buying bluetooth adapters or cables. the disadvantage with IR is you have to have the phone close and pointed at the IR port where as Bluetooth is wireless and as long
.* once I had slowed down the IR speed to something te Nokia could live with!
So if you want to use a mobile with a laptop, first of all make sure the mobile can be used as a modem, also make sure you intended service provider can support gprs or wap when roaming. If your notebook has IR then make sure the mobile you get has IR , you can get a data cable usb or serial. or a lot of mobile have bluetooth but then you have to get a usb bluetooth adapter. I have used nokias for years and find they are relatively simple to set up for data.
The other place to ask this question is on uk.telecom.mobile there are people on there who do this allready
Des
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