Internet in France?

[pablo666]

Hi to the Collective, I've searched here but got confused. I plan to spend 2 months travelling and mainly camping in France. I would like internet access on a nightly basis. I can't use my UK phone data roaming, as the price will be prohibitive. I think I should use a lap-top, or note-book with a dongle, including a pay-as-you-go data sim.

Am I right?
If so, where do I get Dongle and data sim?

Is this a good sim supplier:

http://www.dataroam.co.uk/

Is there an alternative way to use a tablet or I-pad with such a sim/dongle etc? Could I buy a net-book in France with a local data package?

Thanks in expectation.
Paul

 

[corsicandreamer]

France is currently suffering an outbreak of the Mc.donalds rash, they are literally popping up everywhere, you can get wifi in some major tourist offices and in most cities bars with wifi and internet cafés do exist.
Oh it's pronounced wee fee over there.

 

[bowser]

have a look at SFR or lefrenchmobile.
The second one is amied at Brits visiting France, the SFR one is french.
Advantage of first is the fact its in english and aimed at the english, but its a bit more costly.
The SFR one is cheaper, lots of good coverage but you probably will only be able to top up in a store as the reports are that the top up on line or by phone rerquires a credit card/debit card linked to a French address.
Failing that a T mobile sim card/dongle with euro boosters, price is not far off that of the lefrenchmobile.

 

[pablo666]

France is currently suffering an outbreak of the Mc.donalds rash, they are literally popping up everywhere, you can get wifi in some major tourist offices and in most cities bars with wifi and internet cafés do exist.
Oh it's pronounced wee fee over there.

I understand that and thank you for the reminder, however, I will be camping and wanting to use the internet at night, in my tent, to access an on-line language tuition program, and research where to go the next day on my travels, next camp site, interesting history etc, an an ongoing travel guide. I also will keep a blog, check emails and keep a diary on cloud documents. Other stuff not so critical will be uploading photo's to flicker etc.

 

[(RIP) andrewgsadv]

Pablo666,

2 french camp sites we are staying on have wifi. Most we checked out did. Not as prevalent on Municipal sites.

 

[Bumpkin]

Depends on who your mobile contract is with. On a trip to France a month ago I asked Vodafone what the current deals were. Got 25MB a day for £1.67 +VAT each day which I thought pretty reasonable. There was a sign-up cost of £10.

The fact that my previous phone contract with them had international roaming and new phone (on new contract) had a bar without me asking (and that they didn't check when setting this up) resulted in me not having connectivity up until tea time on the first day. For this oversight they waived the £10 set-up fee

Previously I had gone without setting something like this up and been moderate with use of the internet. With 25MB a day it enabled me to use it pretty well at will (with some consideration to what I was doing on-line). Most in our group signed up to Google Latitude which was useful for tracking people down when not riding together and also allowed others at home to track our progress. This only used about 0.5MB/day at most.

 

[Straydog]

Didn't have a need most camping spots and hotels I stayed at offered Internet as part of the deal, so it was wifi for me..

 

[cookie]

roaming has always been prohibitively priced in the past, but i've always mostly found wi-fi. on the odd days i haven't, the on-line world has managed without me.

hard to believe, but true.