Esperanza77

Hello all,
I am staying in a hotel with no free WIFI and their internet offer is 10 pounds/per day?!

I will have internet on my mobile but I need also need it on my laptop.

Is there some (affordable) way to get WIFI on my laptop? Some countries have USB modem which u recharge according to your MB usage, is there something similar in the UK?



Thanks a lot

PatrickLondon

There are plenty of pubs, cafés and some other public institutions that have free Wifi. There are also places that will allow you to connect, and then you find you have to open a web-browser to sign up to the service and start paying after half an hour or so.

One service available in pubs and cafés that I have used without charge (though you have to go through a web-browser sign-in as well as connect to the router) is
http://www.walkinwifi.com/

But you can also check out
http://www.timeout.com/london/things...fi-in-london-9

Or look for the black and white Wifi symbol on café doors.

Or alternatively, you can drop into Carphone Warehouse or similar phone shops and ask about a "dongle" to connect to a mobile phone company's data service:
http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/bro...bile-broadband

PatrickLondon

And another:
http://recombu.com/digital/news/how-...fi_M10898.html

(You don't say where in the UK, but I've assumed London; free access may be rare elsewhere, but not, I suspect, in any big town, and mobile phone shops are everywhere).

annhig

can you "tether" your mobile phone to your laptop?

if they are both apple, this is easily done. otherwise, it might have to be the dongle.

greg

If you have internet on mobile with a lot of data bucket, and if it is a smartphone capable of becoming a hotspot, and if your carrier does not prevent hotspotting, then you can just piggyback your laptop onto your mobile phone's internet.

Tulips

Any Starbucks, and lots of other cafes.
Westfield shopping centers also have free Wifi - and lots of comfortable seating areas.

Esperanza77

Thanks so much, as usual everyone is so generous with their time and info. I will check all the info and links provided of course. I will be in London for part of the visit with trips to Oxford and York. I am mainly interested in having access late at night in my hotel.

Havana128

http://www.thecloud.net/free-wifi/

The Cloud works for me - if you don't mind signing up with your email address.

spaarne

<i>Esperanza77 on Sep 12, 13 at 12:08pm
I will be in London for part of the visit with trips to Oxford and York. I am mainly interested in having access late at night in my hotel.</i>

If you are traveling by train there may be free wifi on board. Also, there may be an electrical outlet with 220 volts and the British style outlet.

Dickie_Gr

Do as we do anywhere in the world.

Buy a coffe and use the cafe's free WIFI.

Dickie_Gr

Better still don't book a hotel that charges for the use. Bloody rip off.

annhig

Better still don't book a hotel that charges for the use. Bloody rip off.>>

dickie, perhaps you can explain to me why the smallest B&B has free wifi, but 5 star hotels think they can charge you an arm and a leg for it.

anicecupoftea

<< why the smallest B&B has free wifi, but 5 star hotels think they can charge you an arm and a leg for it.>>

Well it was business travelers who didn't care what it cost and would claim it back from their employers, and they don't stay in b&bs, but surely this financial squeeze should be changing that?

Dickie_Gr

Some years back, I was away at a 4 star hotel for the weekend and forgot to tell an employee something very basic and very important. I picked the bedroom phone up and made a 10 second phone call as there was no mobile signal.

I checked out of the hotel the morning afterwards.

This is the gods honest truth ..... The charge on my bill stated " communications charge £32 " the checkout person explained 30 quid to be connected and - minimum £2 call charge.

I asked to speak to the manager.

When she appeared. I simply phoned my company on my mobile phone and said (in front of her) ....is that The Telegraph? I then said can I speak to Carol, The Travel Editor. At which stage I asked the hotel manager if she wanted to come in on the conversation. She said no but she would delete the charge.

My staff were in stitched on the other end of the phone.

Never stayed at another Copthorne.

annhig

nice story Dickie.

i suppose your answer is that they do it because they can.

like you, I suspect, i choose to stay at places where there is free wifi.

Esperanza77

Hello again,
patricklondon, seems that buying a dongle from carphone warehouse is the best option for me. So that would be a USB stick modem that allows me to use the net whenever, wherever on my laptop, right?

Thnx so much

sofarsogood

<<So that would be a USB stick modem that allows me to use the net whenever, wherever on my laptop, right?>>

Yes -

check this for comparison www.uswitch.com/broadband/compare/dongles/

Esperanza77

Thanks sofarsogood.

flanneruk

"If you are traveling by train there may be free wifi on board. Also, there may be an electrical outlet with 220 volts and the British style outlet."

Wifi, free or paid for, is rarely installed on European trains. And, BTW, dongle coverage is often patchy. The shortness of most European train journeys and the near-ubiquity of smartphones among hardcore commuters means there's little demand, and the technical problems make it expensive to install.

Between London and York, wifi's installed on East Coast Mainline trains, but is free only to first class passengers and to Standard passengers who use East Coast often enough to rack up loyalty points. Casual users must pay after the first 15 mins. You might find Grand Central have a more attractive wifi offer, but there are only a couple of trains a day

Between London and Oxford, free wifi is available on some trains, though it's practically impossible to predict whether it'll be on yours (FWIW, by now it's supposed to be on all Adelante trains, which service most offpeak journeys going on to Worcester, but there are no plans to install it on other rolling stock).

Dongles can't access the web for more of the London-Oxford journey time than they can. But both the Oxford Tube and the X90 London-Oxford bus services offer free wifi for more or less the entire journey.

KTtravel

It is true in the US, too, that the more expensive hotels seem to charge for Wifi but some of the less expensive ones include it. It is definitely one of the items I look for when choosing a hotel.