We will be spending a month in France in June (mostly Provence) and for the first time will be travelling with a laptop computer. From research here it appears that one may be lucky and be able to access an unsecured connection and obviously Maccas and some restaurants etc may help. In Australia, we can purchase a mobile wireless card allowing connection anywhere a mobile phone can connect. Is anyone familiar with what our options would be in France? Thanks.

ttt

Trying again, where are all the IT experts please?

I'm far from an IT expert, but this might help get you started.

If you buy a Vodafone GPRS card in Oz (or anywhere elkse outside the US), it will, of course, work virtually anywhere in France. Two snags: download times will be slower where there's no 3G coverage, so it defaults back to GPRS. More importantly, last time I checked the international roaming costs concerned (18 mths or so ago), they were so horrible I just used internet cafes. Browse round the Vodafone UK data site (http://tinyurl.com/zysn2) for English-language exzplanations of the costs and coverage.

You might try the Vodafone France site to see whether buying a card in France, with presumably lower access charges, is practically feasible for non-residents. Vodafone do offer pay as you go to anyone in the UK, but I'm not sure whether they do in France.

As for wireless hot spots, can't help. As I understand it, though, T-mobile does offer (for 18 US cents a minute) a reasonable number of places. But a bit of work googling hotspots france shouod get you a lot further

ozgirl, we have found unsecured networks many times in Paris, but less so in rural areas such as Provence.

Take a look at this thread where two other posters included links that will help you find free hot spots:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34758051

Anselm

The Wall Street Journal last week had an article warning people to be careful about using free wi-fi hotspots. There have been cases of these sites actually being decoys put up by hackers, who then attempt to break into the users' computers.

Be sure to have your firewall turned on and your file sharing turned off any time you are using a public service. The article also said that generally speaking your ISP's webmail service has a better layer of security than your desktop email client.

The NY Times also had an article last week about the dangers of keyboard logging software which can be maliciously installed on your computer by various hacks:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/te...gy/27hack.html

The article referred readers to the page below for some good information on securing your browser:
http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/securing_browser/

Be sure to have your firewall turned on and your file sharing turned off any time you are <s>using a public service</s> not behind a router (such as a DSL modem).

We have a Dell Axim and took it to France last year. We purchased a wifi access card in CDG for 10Euros. Unfortunately, after driving my husband batty, we found out that they don't support wireless for PDAs. With a laptop you should be able to get and use one of these cards. Does anyone have any experience using them for pdas?

They &quot;don't support wireless access for PDAs&quot;? What does that mean? If a PDA is 806.11 enabled, it will work. Some critical piece of information is missing here.

In France, several carriers offer broadband internet over their cellular networks. But there are numerous technologies, so the chances that your hardware will play on thiers aren't very good (just as Verizon won't play on T-Mobile won't play on Sprint). It would be best to buy a package consisting of the adapter and airtime, and test it in the store before you hit the road.

I agree with Robespierre... We need more info. How are you planning on connecting? For example there are wireless hotspots ( 802.11g/b) that you can use if your laptop is equiped with a wireless card. The only other wirless option that I can think of would be where your cell phone is hooked to your computer and serves as a modem, transfering the data to your computer. There are Edge and 3G networks here as well as the older WAP. Not sure really what you are looking for.........

Thanks for all comments. This is getting pretty technicaland I'm not! The laptop has inbuilt wireless technology, just need the French equivalent of the &quot;card&quot; that we slot in here to get 'mobile.' Sounds like maybe what Cape Cod bought at CDG? Thanks for the security advice also.

There are only two kinds of cards being discussed here. One is a piece of <b>hardware</b> that's actually a broadband modem that connects your PC to a cellular telephone network. This usually requires a contract with the phone carrier (T-Mobile, Virgin, O2, whatever) and will function all over a large geographic region.

The other is made of <b>paper</b> and authorizes you to use a WiFi &quot;hot-spot&quot; with your computer for some stated length of time. For example, if you buy a latte and a honey bun at Starbuck's or a #3 Meal Deal at McDo's, they'll give you a card with a code on it that lets you access the internet through their Wireless Access Point using the WiFi adapter that's either built in, or plugged into, your PC or PDA. This card is what is sold at airports and train stations for a few &euro; or &pound;. The range of this technology is ordinarily limited to a few hundred feet.