US Trip - Internet options

bairn7

Hi guys

I'm taking my laptop on holiday to the US and wondering if anyone knows of options for internet access other than using the hotel wifi (which is $12.99 per day). Is it possible to buy a dongle in best buy or something like that to use for a couple of weeks? (Sorry, I don't know how dongles etc work!).

I figure if I'm paying $200 in hotel fees there must be another option for around that price or less to allow me to access the internet for a couple of weeks, and with the added benefit of accessing the net on the move?

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks!

Mich81

Not sure about Dongles - but places like Starbucks will offer free wifi

luci

You could try an unlocked dongle and a sim from someone like AT&T. However finding somewhere that sells sim only may be a problem as I couldn't find anywhere in Vegas.

I got a Virgin Broadband2Go dongle from Best Buy, but had to return it as the site only allowed US addresses for registering the credit card to buy bandwidth.

One way round that may be to buy a top up card, but they only come in $20 which only gave, I think, 250MB.

wanye

when i was in florida, i found free wifi in quite a few places (my phone has wifi, so was easy to detect available access points)

if i found one, i just whipped out my netbook and did my updates. quite a few restaurant type places had access, and i kept finding free access points in the malls as well (there were benches outside the apple store which proved quite useful!)

whatever you do, DONT use your UK sim card for 3g/roaming access. youre talking about £7 per MEGABYTE of access.

HTH

paulinespens

If your talking your lap top to the USA I have the best solution. $40 a month for unlimted wireless internet. You just need to buy a USB modem.

http://www.mycricket.com/broadband/plans/40bb_rpr

Mr_Lahey

Loads of places offer free wifi across the States.
Some cities are wifi enabled, Las Vegas is one example where the whole city is wifi covered.

Most eateries have wifi at free or for a small charge.

Otherwise install a Wifi Sniffer and it will sniff out unprotected connections, then just park outside the hotel and surf away.

Philippa36

We signed up with boingo for 30 days internet access for $9.95 when we were stranded in NYC in April. Before that, there were plenty of free wifi spots in the parks around the city.

tingtong

You could get yourself one of these, which should work pretty much worldwide:

http://www.unlocked-dongle.co.uk/New-Unlocked-Dongles/Unlocked-Zoom-4595-3G-Mobile-Broadband-Modem/flypage.tpl.html

However, as Luci states above, the difficult bit seems to be getting a PAYG sim on its own, I can't help on that sorry. Surely someone on here can advise ?

EDIT: Looks like the Cricket SIM recommended above might be just the job.

ferf1223

paulinespens wrote: »

If your talking your lap top to the USA I have the best solution. $40 a month for unlimted wireless internet. You just need to buy a USB modem.

http://www.mycricket.com/broadband/plans/40bb_rpr

It looks like they only allow US addresses for billing and shipping...is there a way around that?

It also says there's an activation fee of up to $25.

paulinespens

There is stores in the USA that sells cricket modems.

luci

ferf1223 wrote: »

It looks like they only allow US addresses for billing and shipping...is there a way around that?

It also says there's an activation fee of up to $25.

Yes ferf, that's what I found when I looked at their website.

Also it says on one part of their site "from $40 a month" so it's unclear whether that is a rolling contract rather than PAYG.

I was going to email them to ask a few questions, but even the email form requires US details and a Cricket mobile number.