Can i use a uk (orange) dungle in portugal?

[zetec]

Holiday due in august & need internet ,any advice would be great.

A trip to the local cafe is a drive away.

[Stationary M25 Traveller]

Best to ask your service provider or look at their website. You will have to pay roaming charges.

[Golf Juliet Tango]

You will not be able to do so by default.

Considering the price of roaming, I would check for hotel wifi and other hotspots. I am told that many McDonalds have free wifi (I was told this about France), which would make the place worth visiting for a cup of coffee.

[Roger Ford]

58p per megabyte.

 

So a 500 MB episode of Eastenders on iPlayer will cost you £290.

 

Lucky it's not "Rest of the World" as then it would be £2,750.

 

You can understand their problem - it must be a real hassle getting all those bytes across national borders. I'm not sure if each byte needs its own passport, or if they can travel on some sort of group visa.

 

Edited by - Roger Ford on 25 Jan 2013 10:46:56

[zetec]

Thanks gents

 

I Wont be using my dongle

[skydragon]

Depending on where exactly you will be staying, I'd suggest buying a pre-loaded or pay-as-you-go dongle at the airport in Portugal or at a local mobile phone shop when you arrive.

 

Usually they are fairly cheap/easy to buy and on local rates you'll find you can get quite a generous data allowance for say 10 Euros.

 

I've got a iPhone on a 25MB a day data tariff which works throughout Europe and I use to teher my laptop to, but I usually buy a 'local' USB dongle for less glamorous destinations outside EU...

[Jonathan Kay]

Quoting skydragon: 

I've got a iPhone on a 25MB a day data tariff which works throughout Europe and I use to teher my laptop to, but I usually buy a 'local' USB dongle for less glamorous destinations outside EU...

I have a friend who is looking for something like that to use in France: could you give the details, please?

 

Jonathan

[skydragon]

To add;

 

Don't know what current tariff you are on, but you can buy a data bundle from Orange to access 30MB a day at a sensible cost. Might be worth adding this onto your current dongle, just for the month. I don't think it is available for PAYG though (?)

 

see here

[skydragon]

Quoting skydragon:

I've got a iPhone on a 25MB a day data tariff which works throughout Europe and I use to teher my laptop to, but I usually buy a 'local' USB dongle for less glamorous destinations outside EU...

I have a friend who is looking for something like that to use in France: could you give the details, please?

 

I bought a iPhone from Vodafone on a 2 year contract. They provide an option called Vodafone Data Traveller (details here

 

Basically you pay a fixed monthly rate, as per a normal phone contract, but when you use data abroad you are charged £2 for up to 25MB usage, for just the day you use it. ie. if you went abroad and used the internet for 3 days, at less that 25MB a day, you would be charged a total of £6.

 

It also works in most countries outside EU, at a higher rate.

 

I've found it to work very well in EU. If you are a regular traveller outside EU, you need to be careful and check that the country is supported. Otherwise you can very quickly clock up a £40 bill (capped) as I found out in Russia recently.

 

The iPhone can be used as a WiFi hotspot, so you can connect a laptop, or ipad to the iPhone via wifi and gain access to the internet. In 3G areas it works very well.

 

Edited by - skydragon on 25 Jan 2013 12:36:57

[Jonathan Kay]

Thanks. That's great information. Tethering would be very useful but of course there's still the data limit.

 

Have you ever found out if the EU cap on roaming data charges works in practice?

 

Jonathan

[skydragon]

Yes, the cap does work in practice. You get a text as you come close to your limit, then a another text as you reach the 25MB limit. Then you get charged at a per MB rate up to the cap, at which point your data service does not work anymore.

 

In practice 25MB is quite a lot of data usage.

 

I also use a iphone app which monitors and reports data usage in real time. eg. i can easily see that I have used 'x'% of my daily allowance.

[bspeed]

Really easy in France and I suspect similar in Portugal. Go to Orange France web site and get info on the pay as you go data for ipad. I paid 60 odd euros which includes some data, a SIM card and a potable wifi thing. You can then buy addition data at a relatively low price. Pay 5 euros and get the unlock code via the web so you can use your wifi thing with any service provider. You can buy the wifi thing in the UK also.

[Smiffy69]

It sounds like I have the same as Skydragon on Voda. The big question is what are you usinig it for? Web browsing and general internet stuff then usage should be relatively low but if your using it for email and downloading big attachements then it all get very expensive very quickly.

 

I used to have dongles but since the smart phone revolution I have only one SIM these days and tether everything else to it. It works for me.

 

However - you can't beat finding a bit of free wifi in a cafe/bar with the added benefit of a couple of cheeky sharperners while you surf 😬