Wireless broadband in France

I'm going on holiday to France for a month in June. I'm currently with
Orange broadband via landline and can get a 3G connection (UK only) for
£5/month including a dongle. I also have an Orange PAYG phone.

I'm assuming (the Orange website is a bit coy about this) that either
this will not work in France or will cost an absolute fortune. I'm told
that getting a French SIM card for the dongle is the way to go. Is this
true? How do I set about getting one?

I'm only looking at low volume stuff, no MP3s or videos.

Another Dave

Another Dave <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
: I'm assuming (the Orange website is a bit coy about this) that either
: this will not work in France or will cost an absolute fortune. I'm told
: that getting a French SIM card for the dongle is the way to go. Is this
: true? How do I set about getting one?

The Orange websoite is actually fairly straightforward about this (if you
start from www.orange.co.uk/roaming! It will work and is 4 pounds/Mb - but
this frightening cost can be reduced slightly by "Travel Bundles".

Others will, hopefully, be along to advise on how to reduce this!

On 07/04/2010 21:09, Brian Mc wrote:
> Another Dave<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> : I'm assuming (the Orange website is a bit coy about this) that either
> : this will not work in France or will cost an absolute fortune. I'm told
> : that getting a French SIM card for the dongle is the way to go. Is this
> : true? How do I set about getting one?
>
> The Orange websoite is actually fairly straightforward about this (if you
> start from www.orange.co.uk/roaming! It will work and is 4 pounds/Mb - but
> this frightening cost can be reduced slightly by "Travel Bundles".
>
> Others will, hopefully, be along to advise on how to reduce this!
>

Thanks for that. £12 for 10 Megabytes (Travel Data 30 days bundle) is
still very steep but tolerable. I'm more used to thinking in Gigabytes
for broadband!

Another Dave

On Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:30:39 +0100, Another Dave wrote:
> On 07/04/2010 21:09, Brian Mc wrote:
>> Another Dave<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> : I'm assuming (the Orange website is a bit coy about this) that either
>> : this will not work in France or will cost an absolute fortune. I'm told
>> : that getting a French SIM card for the dongle is the way to go. Is this
>> : true? How do I set about getting one?
>>
>> The Orange websoite is actually fairly straightforward about this (if you
>> start from www.orange.co.uk/roaming! It will work and is 4 pounds/Mb - but
>> this frightening cost can be reduced slightly by "Travel Bundles".
>>
>> Others will, hopefully, be along to advise on how to reduce this!
>>
>
> Thanks for that. £12 for 10 Megabytes (Travel Data 30 days bundle) is
> still very steep but tolerable. I'm more used to thinking in Gigabytes
> for broadband!
>
You might start thinking differently when you are faced with a several
hundred KB download just for the BBCs homepage (for example). I can't
speak about France, but Spain has incredibly expensive broadband but
you can still get 3G deals for €25 / GB, which should last you a month.

On Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:31:51 +0100, Another Dave wrote:

> I'm going on holiday to France for a month in June.

I've travelled extensively in France over 2 years with laptop.
Many of the Logis de France chain have free WiFi signals in the hotel, as do
many cafes/bistros, and -I'm told - libraries.

--
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