Portable wi-fi

Do you not have a cell phone?

To answer your question with any degree of helpfulness, it would be useful to
know the specific device you are considering (if you are looking to purchase one),
where you will be traveling, what carrier you would consider using/eSim you would
purchase for the device, and what device you would use in Europe that you
would connect to the portable router.

Otherwise, any anecdotal replies are hard to apply to your situation.

Probably wouldn't be an eSIM. More likely to be a physical SIM you'd use in an LTE modem / router type device.

Also, Europe is a big place comprised of many countries. A little specificity on where you're going might help with your question

To shoeflyer' point, I am not even sure you can get it "in Europe" or if you can how open the access will be: https://cepa.org/article/kremlin-throttles-the-internet/ /s

A portable wifi device creates it's own wifi network, which you then access with your phone, laptop etc. The thing is, you may as well just use mobile roaming, rather than buy/rent another device.

The thing is, you may as well just use mobile roaming, rather than buy/rent another device.

It's useful if you've got a laptop and a phone, or a couple of folks with laptops and phones. Especially if you've maybe got some work to do in the evening or something. It's better than tethering a phone.

A few years ago when I was working in events I bought something similar to this for one of my clients. Meant we could get a little network for a few machines outdoors.

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/3g-4g-router/tl-mr100/

If you are just wanting data for emails, google maps and browsing on one or four devices, you are better off using your phone with a data SIM or eSIM if it has the capacity. If you need to tether 10 or more devices, are happy carrying an extra gadget on your travels and are reliant on the internet for work and can't risk your phone battery being flattened prematurely, go with something that has 5G, cooling, large capacity battery and otherwise more expensive

We always rent a portable wifi unit from hippocketwifi.com. I think we could use an app that would adapt to the country you are traveling in and give you a local network through a SIM card but we like taking a unit of our own. We have the unit delivered to us a few days before our plane leaves America and turn it on when our plane lands in Europe. We mail it back from our last hotel the morning we fly back to America. Always works well for us.

I just use an eSIM, which gives me good service and is much cheaper than a portable wifi device (plus easier to use since you don't have to have an additional device with you).

Im kinda lost here. Last night I wanted to watch a Netflix movie that was on US Netflix but not on Hungarian. I had two options, connect my Smart TV to my US phone (Hot Spot) or log into Netflix on my US phone and cast the image to my TV. I chose the latter so I would have to change my TV settings. Tge point is, you can do so much with a phone, why a portable wifi? Egetate me.

Thanks for the replies.

Four of us are traveling to France Germany, Prague, Hungary, then leaving from London returning to the US. Our concern is losing WiFi in certain areas while we’re driving. I have a cell phone and the daily rate for a global pass is $10/ day for 1 G of data usage. So I am looking for a less expensive option and portable wi-fi seemed like one.

Mardee and Mr. E just gave some good reasons to just get an esim. I'll add one more:

Instead of a single purpose wifi hotspot device, I bought a cheap TCL 8" tablet from Wally World for $68. I put a $20 esim adapter into it and loaded esim's for Roamless and Bcengi. So now, for $88, I have a tablet I can use as a hotspot or read books, watch videos, browse the web, or check email. I like having a backup device on trips.

BUT here's a good use for a hotspot:
If you have a large group, family, or business group, it would be cheaper and less hassle to have one account for a hotspot versus 6 individual esim plans with some people needing more data, your teenager running out, and 6 individual accounts to pay for. And you'd have better economy of scale buying 100 gb. of data. Also, if you have a geek with you, he/she could setup some filesharing using the hotspot.

And here's another benefit of either kind of hotspot:
When I had AT&T service, there was no free international roaming, but they allowed wifi calling for either free or very cheap (I forget which). My Samsung phones would not allow me to do wifi calling with cell data (I think newer iPhones can). So I would use my hotspot, connect my phone to it, and text or call back home for almost free.

Mardee and Mr. E and I all have Tmobile plans with free (or cheap) roaming texting or calling, so we don't need a hotspot for that. But most plans do not have free international roaming. Most of them do allow wifi calling. One caution, before international wifi calling, read the fine print in your plan to see if there are any high fees for wifi calling. I got caught by that this spring, calling an Irish hotel using wifi calling from my house. Turns out it was $3 per minute.

skufca4600, I missed your last post before I replied.

Wow, $10 for 1 gb. is outragous. For most of Europe, Roamless is $1.95/gb. Bcengi is $1.19/Gb. And they are Pay-as-you-go, so your balance doesn't expire in 15 days.

Shouldn't matter if you are all in vehicles or not, the hotspot is doing the exact same thing a cellphone does. It's no better or worse at receiving cell signals. And it's not a question of losing wifi, it's a matter of losing cellphone signals or not.

Wifi is what you get in buildings- a fixed lcoation. What you want is mobile data.

Your phone will get data when driving except when it doesn't. A portable wifi device will use mobile data except when it can't find a signal - just like your phone.

https://mobile.free.fr/en/voyages-forfait-europe-france

That's what I'd buy SIM-wise if | were going to several EU countries starting with France. €19.99 per month for 350GB of data. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Better than these tourist eSIMS like Airolo or Holafly that everyone talks about, which still sound pretty expensive to me.

As far as device that allows several people to share this connection in a car, this, or something similar, is what I might consider -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-M7000-Portable-Unlocked-Management/dp/B089ZFZK5L

Sorry if Amazon UK link doesn't work.

OP, you can let us know if the combination of these two items I linked to makes sense to you.

The biggest plus with a portable WiFi device is the ability to lock onto a weak signal where a phone may have "no service". You can also plug in an external high gain antenna for really difficult areas and mount it on the roof of a car.

GerryM, wow, that's a great deal, for 20 euros. Depending on how much video or tv someone watches, that could be a replacement for my $85/month cable internet bill. I've saved a bookmark for that.

And Yarramar, I didn't realize that some mifi devices had antenna jacks. That's not useful for the average family traveling around Europe, but if you wanted to use the device for your home internet, that would be great. At my house, my Tmobile signal isn't that strong, so I have such an antenna on my roof pointing at the Tmobile tower. Then I have an amplifier in my attic, repeating the signals to my house. The antennas are pretty cheap on Ebay. The only trick is figuring out what cellphone band you need the antenna and amplifier to cover to get the 4G or 5G for your celllphone plan.

You can also plug in an external high gain antenna for really difficult areas and mount it on the roof of a car.

The only issue would be powering it in the car. You'd be looking for something that takes 12V from a car accessory plug or 5V over USB. The dinky little one I linked to is rechargeable but doesn't have a socket for an external antenna.

The French SIM from Free I linked to is 350GB of data in France only. It has 35GB for EU roaming.

Sosh is Orange's low cost "sans engagement" SIM only provider, which is the equivalent of a UK "Pay as you go". You know you're going to have excellent coverage in France at least on the Orange network.

Sosh offers 300GB data in France for €20.99 per month. 50GB roaming in the EU.

https://shop.sosh.fr/mobile/forfait-5g-300go-50go

GerryM, wow, that's a great deal, for 20 euros.

I didn't realise EU roaming data was more restricted until I looked into it. I've no experience of these, but I'm just doing research on the hoof for the OP because it interests me too.