Re: Europe

[Jan Schledermann <spamtrap@schledermann.org>]

David Johnson wrote:

> We're travelling to Europe for a year and would like to setup a Debian
> Laptop. For those Europeans out there, what technologies have you found to
> work
> well?  We're currently exploring the high speed wireless cards that
> include
> UMNTS, and 3G.  Specifically we'll be heading to Italy, Switzerland, and
> the UK. Any thoughts comments on the best ways to connect to the Internet
> for mobile users of Debian would be great.
> 
> --David

>From a debian point of view there is no difference between gprs and umts.
You basically set up the cellphone to do GPRS (as opposed to WAP) and if a
umts network is available (which your provider allows you to use) it'll use
it. If no umts network is available the phone uses gprs.
Gprs and umts are paid for by the MB. Wap per sec.

Umts is very pricey. The cheapest solution is a subscription based on a
minimum MB commitment. I am not sure how easy it'll be to get a
subscription as a traveller.
Umts and gprs on a pre-paid-card basis is even more expensive. Assume 2-3
times more expensive than a subscription with a 10MB monthly commitment.
If you can get a umts subscription in your home-country, that'll take care
of the prepaid- vs subscription problem, but, roaming remains very
expensive.

My suggestion would be, to arm your self with a wireless cardand  a utp
cable and use internet cafes whenever possible. Use the cell phone only in
an emergency situation.
There are internet cafes all over the place these days.



Best regards
Jan


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