Best mobile phone package for email etc (EU touring)?

[KeithM]

We will be touring Germany for 3 months next year and would like to use my laptop + mobile phone for email etc. At the moment I have a PAYG SIM (fine for the UK as I have little need for a mobile) and would like to avoid having to take out a 12 month contract. Does anyone have any recommendations or experience of using a suitable provider/account?

Keith M

 

[MikeP]

We just use internet caf

 

[rob_jax]

Hi Keith,

I work almost every other week in Rotterdam, live in the UK and Holland, and there's no single answer.

I do have a contract phone (with Orange) with international roaming enabled for voice and data - but it's expensive - even with my company paying the bills I still hate to see call charges of more than _1 per minute - and I suggest you keep you UK phone just to receive phone calls - and keep them short because you pay for the "Europe" side of the call.

Keeping in contact by e-mail - following Mike's advice of using an Internet Cafe will be much, much cheaper than using a UK SIM card for data in Germany.

Make an internet search for free wireless hotspots - I'd certainly check with your camp sites if they have free WiFi installed yet - at a conference in Berlin earlier this month - I was able to connect to three free hotspots - in addition to free WiFi at the conference centre and the airport.

Also investigate getting a German PAYG SIM before you go, checking that you can switch the SIM cards (may mean getting the phone unlocked)

Robert

 

[Guest]

Wifi card if your laptop is not wifi enabled already. And as rob says find free wifi hotspots.

Campsite we used in Eire in the summer had a wireless network and a campsite we used on the way home in France had wireless network to if you sat in or near the reception area.

An online search will find you pay and free wifi hotspots around Europe.

 

[KeithM]

Thanks for the responses - always good to get first-hand feedback.

Yes, my laptop has wifi (in fact that is how I connect when at home as I have a Netgear wireless router). So far, in France anyway, campsites with wifi are not exactly common and none I've come across are free - but there again, the charges are less than an internet cafe. Hopefully German campsites with wifi will be more common!

My main concern with internet cafes is with security of information i.e. if one needs to access bank accounts to check the balance or set-up a payment. Yes, one deletes the history etc in Explorer before logging-off, but /paranoid mode on/ there could be a key-logger tucked away behind the desk! //paranoid mode off//.

So, another couple of things to add to my list for the forthcoming dark winter evenings - find German campsites with wifi and find out about buying a German SIM.

Keith M

 

[Graham_374228415]

Another way is to buy an international sim card for around

 

[Graham_374228415]

Another way is to buy an international sim card for around

 

[Lutz]

A much cheaper way to phone the UK from Germany is to buy a pre-paid calling card that you can buy locally at many newsagents, internet cafes and the suchlike. For example, with the GoBananas card, a call from any private telephone in Germany to the UK costs less than 1 cent per minute.

 

[MikeP]

To answer the point about internet banking security and spyware. I am happy to use internet banking in any location. My bank (Lloyds TSB) has a password, plus a pass phrase. It asks for only 3 out of 13 characters from the latter - so even if someone is using spyware, they won't be able to gain access as random characters are requested each time. And if someone sees my latest statement or my list of standing orders? I don't care.

 

[KeithM]

Hi Lutz,

You wrote "For example, with the GoBananas card, a call from any private telephone in Germany to the UK costs less than 1 cent per minute."

How does the card work? You write "private phone" so presumably that precludes call-boxes etc. Or is there a surcharge when using a call-box/public phone? I note that the 'Card4Anywhere' site quotes a surcharge of 18.5p/minute for using a public phone (which is still considerably cheaper than using my UK mobile).

With regard to security, First Direct have a similar log-in methodology as your bank, Mike P and we came to the same conclusion i.e. as a one-off event in any one particular internet cafe, it should be OK (ignoring paranoia). Under normal circumstances we should not need to log-on to the bank as everything including credit card statements will be paid by (variable) direct debit. So as long as we accurately track expenditure on my Dell Axim, backed up to my laptop and don't overspend........

So really that leaves us with keeping in contact with relatives/friends in the UK, Europe and Australia which will be mainly via email. I might just have talked myself out of getting a fancy new 3G whizzo phone - damn

Keith M