Wi-Fi without landline

BT · Post by BT » Thu 05 Mar 2015 12:58

Hi,

Does anyone know if it is possible to get Wi-Fi without having a Landline. Our appartment is in the St Cyp area.

Regards

BT

Satbloke66 · Post by **Satbloke66** » Thu 05 Mar 2015 13:22

BT wrote:Hi,

Does anyone know if it is possible to get Wi-Fi without having a Landline. Our appartment is in the St Cyp area.

Regards

BT

Use your mobile phone as a wifi hotspot

BT · Post by BT » Thu 05 Mar 2015 13:33

Thanks for the reply however it's not a solution for us as we have Irish mobiles and data roaming would be huge.

I would like to leave a laptop or a tablet in the apartment for family use.
Regards
BT

Allan · Post by **Allan** » Thu 05 Mar 2015 13:44

BT wrote:Hi,

Does anyone know if it is possible to get Wi-Fi without having a Landline. Our appartment is in the St Cyp area.
BT

All the main providers now have loads of 'hot spots' all over the place. The achieve this by running secondary Wi-Fi networks on ordinary customer's routers and pinching a small proportion of their bandwidth.

Try turning on Wi-Fi on a computer, tablet or phone while in your apartment and look at the networks that it finds. You may find that you can see the routers in neighbouring apartments, if so try coming to a deal with your neighbours.

If you see a hotspot with the word FON in the name then you can use it on a pay as you go basis. Generally hot spots will have names like SFR public Wifi.

If you find a hotspot, post it on here and I or someone else will advise if you can connect to it and how you go about it.

If you do manage to connect to a hotspot, you will get limited bandwidth which will be insufficient for UK TV.

Your other option is to use the cellular network, 3G or 4G if it covers your location. As has been suggested, you can use your phone as a hotspot or buy a data key from one of the service providers. Again, not suitable for watching TV

martyn94 · Post by **martyn94** » Thu 05 Mar 2015 13:53

You can get "dongles" eg like this, chosen entirely at random

https://www.bouyguestelecom.fr/forfait-internet-mobile

which tie into the 3G/4G mobile telephone network. The data is pretty expensive, so very much for surfing/emails rather than eg watching TV. Which network, if any, gives decent service in your area is likely to be a matter of trial and error, unless you can find some local knowledge ( the "St Cyp area" is perhaps a a bit too vague). Or use the coverage maps on the respective firms' websites.

It's perhaps worth noting that there are only three networks offering this kind of data-only service, eg Orange, Bouygtel and SFR. Anyone else is retailing capacity that they have bought from these three wholesale: their service will be no better but might be marginally cheaper.

martyn94 · Post by **martyn94** » Thu 05 Mar 2015 14:09

BT wrote:Hi,

Does anyone know if it is possible to get Wi-Fi without having a Landline. Our appartment is in the St Cyp area.

Regards

BT

By way of afterthought, it is generally possible to have Internet without "having a landline" in the sense of a year-round telephone contract, if your apartment has a telephone connection which could be woken up.

Details are here

http://abonnez-vous.orange.fr/residenti ... verte.aspx

A friend uses it who is only in France for a couple of months a year: it is a bit of a faff remembering to switch it on and off, and from memory you have to pay in blocks of a month. But it works ok for him. For what it's worth, you can also get landline telephone service on essentially the same basis, paying Orange's "résidence secondaire" tariff only for the months you are there.

BT · Post by BT » Thu 05 Mar 2015 15:08

Thank you for all the replies.

During the last 2 summers were able to access Wi-Fi in the next apartment when it was occupied (let), the owner had very kindly provided us with his code.

Regards

BT

alan · Post by **alan** » Thu 05 Mar 2015 16:43

Allan helpfully wrote above:

"If you see a hotspot with the word FON in the name then you can use it on a pay as you go basis. Generally hot spots will have names like SFR public Wif".

While we were at our house in Port Vendres last month, I found such a hotspot, namely "SFR public Wifi Fon" but I also found that we didn't need to pay for it because our internet at home is provided by BT and there is some partnering arrangement in existence.

So I can now access the internet and emails at our house in Port Vendres logging in just as at home in West Sussex instead of going down to a local bar as I had done before.

Allan, I am sure that I should know this from everything you have written on the subject, but in a nutshell what is the easiest way I can now access English catch up TV in France please?

Allan · Post by **Allan** » Thu 05 Mar 2015 17:11

alan wrote:Allan helpfully wrote above:

"If you see a hotspot with the word FON in the name then you can use it on a pay as you go basis. Generally hot spots will have names like SFR public Wif".

While we were at our house in Port Vendres last month, I found such a hotspot, namely "SFR public Wifi Fon" but I also found that we didn't need to pay for it because our internet at home is provided by BT and there is some partnering arrangement in existence.

So I can now access the internet and emails at our house in Port Vendres logging in just as at home in West Sussex instead of going down to a local bar as I had done before.

Allan, I am sure that I should know this from everything you have written on the subject, but in a nutshell what is the easiest way I can now access English catch up TV in France please?

Yes, BT is FON's partner in the UK and so there is reciprocal use of Hotspots
I didn't mention is as the original poster is from Ireland where no such reciprocal arrangement exists.

Anyone can join FON for about €40 and make use of 14 Million hotpots around the world.

As for UK TV, there is an article here http://forum.anglophone-direct.com/ftopic12402.php that provides a lot of information and there was an update in issue 46 of PO life http://www.anglophone-direct.com/POLife/POlife46.pdf

Don't expect to watch live TV using a FON connection, they are usually not fast enough.

On a slow connection, you can download BBC programs for subsequent viewing. ITV currently doesn't offer this unless you have Sky Go Extra

BT · Post by BT » Tue 10 Mar 2015 14:15

Thank you for all the replies.

When you get a chance please take a look at the link below. It seems quite suitable for our needs and at a usage charge of €35 from Easter till Sept (only need it for emails and checking the news) seems to be great value.

https://thewifishop.net/index.php?_a=pr ... uct_id=224

We don't need to download films, we bring out USB keys if we want to watch films.

Am I missing something?

Regards

BT

Owens88 · Post by **Owens88** » Tue 10 Mar 2015 14:43

I couldn't find the charge of £35, just the purchase price of the router.

The key thing might be to check reception, but you know that ! Alas when I try for Vernet the interactive map goes on a journey elsewhere in France.

Good luck.

martyn94 · Post by **martyn94** » Tue 10 Mar 2015 15:21

Dongles like this are capable of suiting your needs, but it will depend on the signal, and - probably much more so - on how well Orange cater for times of high demand. Possibly not v well around 1700 hrs in the middle of August, but well worth a try. You can get it for £30-odd if you wait until you get to France

http://boutique.orange.fr/tablette-et-c ... et-prepaye

Allan · Post by **Allan** » Tue 10 Mar 2015 18:53

Well spotted Martyn, that is the same device as BT found but at half the price.

My only observation is that St Cyprien is in a 4G area so to me it would make sense to buy the 4G version of the Domino rather than the suggested 3G device which may soon be considered obsolete.

It's some time since I looked at 3G/4G offerings and itis good to see that the French suppliers appear to be joining the real world.

martyn94 · Post by **martyn94** » Tue 10 Mar 2015 21:19

I was too idle to look at the 4G (and I hate typing) but evidently worth looking at. And also at whatever Bouygtel offers.

That said, I am just off to Australia where I survive on one of these dongles for a few weeks a year, faute de mieux. They are a lot better than nothing, but still a pain in the backside. They are never quick, drop out from time to time, and grind to a halt when the kids get back from school. You use much more data than you expect to (even if you remember to switch off the software updates and other leaks on all your devices...). And you have to faff about buying top-ups. And next year, you probably have to buy a new SIM card because last year's has expired.

It depends on your tolerance for faff. But if the flat has a phone point somewhere (and it is hard to believe it doesn't), I would go for the landline-based alternative - ie Orange Découverte - in a heartbeat, even at twice the price.

Allan · Post by **Allan** » Wed 11 Mar 2015 02:53

martyn94 wrote:I was too idle to look at the 4G (and I hate typing) but evidently worth looking at. And also at whatever Bouygtel offers.

That said, I am just off to Australia where I survive on one of these dongles for a few weeks a year, faute de mieux. They are a lot better than nothing, but still a pain in the backside. They are never quick, drop out from time to time, and grind to a halt when the kids get back from school. You use much more data than you expect to (even if you remember to switch off the software updates and other leaks on all your devices...). And you have to faff about buying top-ups. And next year, you probably have to buy a new SIM card because last year's has expired.

It depends on your tolerance for faff. But if the flat has a phone point somewhere (and it is hard to believe it doesn't), I would go for the landline-based alternative - ie Orange Découverte - in a heartbeat, even at twice the price.

Well the theme of this thread is wi-fi without a landline.

In an earlier post BT said he had access to his neighbours wi-fi so surely an arrangement with him would be by far the best option.

I mentioned earlier the visibility of wi-fi hotspots from the apartment, the Orange Domino will use an Orange hotspot in preference to 3G so if there is one nearby then you can get away without consuming any of the data allowance. I believe that other providers offerings work similarly.

3GB may sound a lot but I get through that every couple of days although I am a fairly heavy user.

Davidsimon · Post by **Davidsimon** » Mon 23 Mar 2015 17:03

Anybody using the Pro version of the Orange service? The house where I'm staying has a Livebox Pro,but the speeds are dire.And in bad weather like the weekend the service disappears,I'm doing research for a Uni course so can some days spend 8+ hours online so data limits may be an issue.

Allan · Post by **Allan** » Mon 23 Mar 2015 17:24

Davidsimon wrote:Anybody using the Pro version of the Orange service? The house where I'm staying has a Livebox Pro,but the speeds are dire.And in bad weather like the weekend the service disappears,I'm doing research for a Uni course so can some days spend 8+ hours online so data limits may be an issue.

Just because it is a Livebox Pro, it doesn't mean you have the Pro service. Orange engineers have been known to swap Liveboxes for all sorts of versions.

I doubt it is anything to do with data limits. Orange has a really good English-speaking helpline 0969 363900

Davidsimon · Post by **Davidsimon** » Mon 23 Mar 2015 21:52

Spoken with them,it is Pro service they checked but they can only refer me to there website which has a Pro wireless system advertised 5GB on 3G+ but not what costs are if it's exceeded.

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