Francesca Pesce wrote:
You get your dongle in the UK, either from a phone company together with the SIM, if it is convenient. Or else you just buy one in a shop.
Then when you are in France (but you can look it up on the Internet from home), you get a prepaid SIM card for internet connections and stick it in your dongle, replacing the British one. (it is easy and legal)
It certainly is more convenient, because their is no international roaming involved. They must have some kind of interesting offers for prepaid internet connections: for xx days, or for yy minutes, or for zz Mb.
Indeed, it is certainly becoming increasingly clear that roaming data is a very expensive habit, and that some kind of local (i.e. French) domestic package is the most sensible choice, regardless of the fact I was hoping not to spend holiday time visiting mobile phone emporia
If you had to do many local phone calls in France for 20 days, you wouldn't think of using your UK mobile: you would get a French prepaid SIM card for those 20 days. The same goes for your internet connection.
Quite so. This is partly what I was trying to ascertain. I am more familiar with mobile phones and roaming pricing and what service you actually get for your money. So yes, if I had to make "a lot" of calls in France, I would do as you describe. If I just had to make "a few" calls, I would roam (and have done so in the past).
I would do a rough cost-benefit calculation, including non-financial factors such as the fact that I am supposed to be on holiday (did I mention that ) so, for example, I would not waste a morning driving into the nearest town for a French phone/SIM card just to save 10 euros, but I probably would in order to save 100 euros.
When I asked for experiences, one aspect was looking for indications as to whether my roaming data usage would be considered "a lot" or just a little. Basically, the kind of info that Ines provided about how much data she used when roaming. I now further appreciate that most European countries charge by time, so people outside the UK probably don't know how much data they use.
Having finally managed to ascertain that my data usage when roaming could potentially be "a lot", I am finally now, today, in a position to work out roughly how much that is likely to cost (potentially well over £100 and possibly double that amount), and compare it to the cost of the French options, add in a "holiday disruption premium" and see what the result is!
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