Is there an affordable way use the internet all over England? My wife and I will be taking a group of university students there next year and we need to be able to access the internet wherever we travel. Our phones will work over there but that's expensive. Can one rent a laptop/netbook for a month that has affordable internet capability? Are there other options? Thanks in advance! Alan
ps. We've loved and used Rick's books for years.
Not sure where a large group would be staying but we were all overy England last year and there was internet access in every place we stayed. Most of the places we stayed at were small hotels or B&Bs.
Interestingly, although we had internet access, the service seemed to have limited bandwidth in these smaller places. We occasionally saw signs in our rooms not to download or upload large documents. I would guess that with a large group, the bandwidth needs would be higher. I would suggest contacting your hotels or places you intend to stay to check on the internet access.
Note that some cell phones can be "tethered" to the laptops and used as a modem. Not advisable as 1) your internet supplier will want you on an additional program for $29-$49/month and, 2) you will be roaming. You'll faint when you see the roaming costs. I decided not to tether mine after my Verizon people told me about users with $4,000 roaming bills for using their cell phone as a modem.
Alan
How will she be travelling? Car? Train? Coach? Bus? Narrowboat?
What sort of accommodation?
Where? Major cities and towns, or villages and farms?
I'll wait for more guidance from you then respond. While lots of folk use dongles, I and many others rely on free wifi hotspots.
Please elaborate a little. Ta.
Free wifi, or nearly free, is fairly common. I don't have any recent experience in England but last year between Amsterdam and Rome it was obtainable. McDonalds for example and our hotel general had it. Sometimes limited to an hour or so. You Am laptop will work. No need to rent one. The traditional internet cafe is going by the way side simply because of free wifi.
If you just google "how to rent a laptop in England", you'll get several leads.
My own preference for a portable wi-fi platform is the Ipod Touch, because of its small and easily portable size.
You should be able to find wi-fi hotspots or internet cafes pretty easily in England.
There is a fair amount of (mostly free) wifi in shopping centres, cafes, libraries, etc, in cities and towns. More rural areas (villages etc) may be more of a problem.
The mobile phone network "Three" will sell you a mobile broadband dongle for your laptop (if you have access to one) for £30 including 1GB of data valid for 30 days (or £40 including 3GB). Coverage is pretty good in my experience (I use it as my main Internet connection at home and out and about), but again I haven't tried it in rural areas. It does save hunting around for a wifi spot, though, and often seems to have better coverage than the wifi on some coach and train services.
Other networks also offer mobile broadband, but I think Three probably offers the best deal (but deals vary, so feel free to check).
If you have unlocked quad-band GSM (3G, preferably) Internet-capable phones, you might want to investigate getting local SIMs for them.
Anthony
