As anyone bought a dongle for internet access abroad ?. I’m thinking of spain in particular. Are they as easily available on pay as you go as they are in the uk ?. Where else is there for internet access, is there anything like BT openzone ?. Do spanish Mc Donalds have free internet ?.
Here’s a list of McDonalds in Spain with free wifi
trustive.com/hotspots/McDonalds_chain/Spain/
I don’t know of any dongle-based internet access which is not prohibitively expensive- it costs about 40p per internet page on 3mobile which is my mobile ISP.
Ex Haulier:
As anyone bought a dongle for internet access abroad
Are you asking if anyone has tried to buy a dongle while abroad, a Spanish dongle for eg ?
British mobile phone companies dongles are all, as Harry said, bloody expensive when used abroad.
Simon:
Ex Haulier:
As anyone bought a dongle for internet access abroadAre you asking if anyone has tried to buy a dongle while abroad, a Spanish dongle for eg ?
British mobile phone companies dongles are all, as Harry said, bloody expensive when used abroad.
Thinking about this over alcopops, a dongle is just a USB plug with a SIM card in it, so what would happen if you bought a Spanish SIM card?
I don’t think it’s quite as simple as just buying a sim. The dongles are locked to your home network and have inbuilt software which prevents you using an alternative service provider. Anyway the price of the dongle isn’t really the problem, T mobile are now offering one for under a tenner on PAYG. One of the problems now in spain is that they have just cut off all the PAYG mobiles where the owner had failed to go and register it in there own name. You would think there would be something like BT Openzone, but you seem to be able to find local or regional ones but nothing nationwide.
prepaidgsm.net/en/spagna/simyo.html,
gonuts4free.com/ as these are through a phone number you would need an unlocked phone that you can tether to your laptop, I would guess, + a spanish sim card
spainsim.com/vodusbadslmodem.htm
Vodaphones dongle for Spain all in English 
i think the best way to get round it is to get spanish pay as you go sim card, the best person to ask is vasco cos he lives down there.
orange do a dongle which is pay as you go in spain and is free in all orange shops (spanish orange that is!)
I’m actually in spain on my vodafone dongle now. At first i thought i would use my 3 UK one as i wouldn’t be using it that much. After spending over 20 quid in under an hour online, i went and bought a vodafone spain one. It’s a good bit dearer than the UK. The dongle cost 59 euro’s which includes the first month of unlimited use. Overall i reckon it’s about double what it costs in the UK but it’s quite quick and the coverage seems to be excellent.
my wife has a pay as you go orange one which is free from the shop just put credit on, i’ve got one from orange for 40 euros a month unlimited use including the laptop as long as you sign up for 2 years
I didn’t want to sign up for a contract, i only spend about 3 months each year down here. Never found an Orange one. The movistar deal didn’t seem as good as the vodafone one. Will keep an eye open for Orange, what’s the coverage like ?.
there’s a couple of places i can’t get a signal on the CL101 between cintruenigo and valverde and on the gran ruta shortcut between murcia and granada near huesca but apart from that no problems at all.
i won’t use movistar because its telefonica and they messed up our landline for 3 months and won’t now give us a refund or discount for non service
i definitely won’t use vodafone because they used to sponsor manure utd 
just thought i’d update you ex-haulier.
i’m using my dongle now in sunbilla but its gprs here not 3g so a bit slow on downloads
its 39euros a month for 18 months with a free HP Compaq Mini i know its not ideal if you’re not here all year but it’s the same as finance for the notebook and you could always use your uk dongle in it at home.
who the hell thought up the word DONGLE though?
I bought an unlocked dongle off Ebay for £28.99 which came with an O2 card, I have a LeClerc card in it, the Leclerc cards are pre pay and top up on line,but you do not loose any of your credit if you dont use it, I have tried my Telofonica card in it and that works ok also.
Have you got a link to that on ebay, kerbut. I now have 4 different dongles but not one for france. I have been told that it’s a problem getting a sim card in france if you are not a resident, do you know anything about that ?.
kerbut:
I bought an unlocked dongle off Ebay for £28.99 which came with an O2 card.
Could you expand on this a little, how much does it cost to use etc?
Harry
If you go to leclercmobile.fr it is all on their web site, the charge is 10 cents per minute,you pre pay for the call charges and the card costs 15 eur with 10 eur free calls included . They have moved the goal posts slightly, before the credit was for life now it only lasts for 12 months,but that’s better than Alice and France Telecom as if you dont use it after 30 days you loose it. You have to have a French address to get a card ,but if you need one PM me and you can use mine with your name,I have never had any correspondence from them in the 3 years I have been using their card.
With regard to Telefonicia (Movistar ) I dont know their charges as I took the SIM out of my Spanish phone to see if it worked and it did, maybe Welshboy is the best to answer that.
Edit to add,I have not used the O2 option as I dont realy need it.
my dongle is on unlimited use for 39 euros a month but my wife has one that is 10 euros for 10Mb you use on internet thats a prepay with orange