Mobile internet

[redwood]

Can anyone help me locate the best place to buy a PAYG dongle for use whilst on holiday in France?

I tried in Leclerc in Jnauary but the price and monthly charge was rather high. I have been told it is possible to get a much cheaper deal from other outlets but no-one has been specifiic.

We are in France in September for some house hunting and would like to get the laptop set-up asap after arrival in Toulouse in order that we can keep in touch with agents etc.

So a PAYG scheme with a low monthly top-up would be best. The second question is whether it is necessary to make a small monthly payment whilst not in France to keep the whole thing live or if I can just start the payments again for the subsequent visit. Relying on Free WiFi spots isn't ideal and was OK during a skiing holiday but we were in one place and it wasn't essential.

[breizh]

I think you maybe confusing France with somewhere else [:D]

At a local level, coverage, by the various networks is variable at best. This is not the UK, or Germany, where you can just about guarantee a signal, anywhere. I travel around the country a lot, and carry 2 work mobiles, each on different networks, and sometimes can't get a signal on either. 4G, or 3G, coverage is even worse. Normally, I don't even bother trying to logon via anything other than a wifi network. McDo do good coffee[:D] Strong, black, no suger, for me please. Railway station, tourist info, mairie, biblio, the list is endless.

If it has to be a dongle try the various networks outlets in Toulouse. Check the coverage maps very carefully! I'm in Paris, so can't really help.

 

[pachapapa]

I'm in Deux-Sèvres, if I walk up the hill I can use a mobile. 4G 3G wazzat?[:)]

[AnOther]

If you do happen to find something we'd appreciate you coming back to let us know about it [:D][:D][:D]

[Quillan]

You can buy a key from Orange France for 69 Euros with a 30 Euro refund if you qualify. This gives you a day of unlimited access and you can recharge the key but I don't know how much that costs. Anything to do with mobile phones or Internet is just so expensive in France. As somebody said, go to McDonald's, its very popular. You might also sit in your local town/village square, you will be surprised how many people don't protect their WiFi connection. [;-)]

Orange Link - http://boutique.orange.fr/ESHOP_mx_orange/?tp=F&ref=39008&IDCible=1&type=11&donnee_appel=ORESH

[Rjpfrancais]

@Quillan "You might also sit in your local town/village square, you will be surprised how many people don't protect their WiFi connection."

But why would you be daft enough to do something that may be illegal when for a small cost you can use a service like Boingo to find official hotspots that can be used for a small cost, or for free?

And its not unknown for hackers to deliberately leave Wifi hotspots unprotected to act as honey traps for the unwary...I'm just sayin its a possibility ;-)

[pachapapa]

[quote user="Rjpfrancais"]@Quillan "You might also sit in your local town/village square, you will be surprised how many people don't protect their WiFi connection." But why would you be stupid enough to do something that may be illegal when for a small cost you can use a service like Boingo to find official hotspots that can be used for a small cost, or for free?[/quote]

Yes pure unadulterated surprise; I have yet to find one.

[Salty Sam]

http://www.hotel-bb.com/reservation-hotel/lang/en/home/informationsbb.

Excellent reception from the car park.

[Quillan]

[quote user="pachapapa"]

[quote user="Rjpfrancais"]@Quillan "You might also sit in your local town/village square, you will be surprised how many people don't protect their WiFi connection." But why would you be stupid enough to do something that may be illegal when for a small cost you can use a service like Boingo to find official hotspots that can be used for a small cost, or for free?[/quote]

Yes pure unadulterated surprise; I have yet to find one.

[/quote]

Well perhaps the French are a bit more stupid down here (or perhaps they are stupid Brits) because out of the seven odd that I can pick up outside our local bar three are not secure. Means I can sit outside with a coffee and read my papers online. Perhaps you have not been looking, I wouldn't have normally except I left my mobile on 'scan' by accident and thats how I found them.

We have an unsecured WiFi in our B&B, not far from Toulouse, because its available to the guests free of charge and we found some people have problems typing in the code, too many digits. We 'bridge' ours through the server to stop hacking.

[Simon-the-censored]

Hi redwood - Orange France offer their dongle from 10€ per month without contract - depends how much you need to use it.

Link here:

http://mobile-shop.orange.fr/forfait/cle-3G-sans-engagement

Or as Quillan says just go into an Orange shop (or order on-line) and pick one up for 69€ (with 30€ refunded but think you need a French address / bank account) and you top it up on-line. Essentially you buy time which can work out pretty expensive with this option but - if it's only for a holiday....

Link here:

http://boutique.orange.fr/ESHOP_mx_orange/?tp=F&ref=39008&IDCible=1&type=11&donnee_appel=ORESH

All the operators dongles work on Wifi, 3G and GPRS networks - so the coverage is normally pretty good no matter where you are.

Simon :-)

[pachapapa]

[quote user="Salty Sam"]http://www.hotel-bb.com/reservation-hotel/lang/en/home/informationsbb. Excellent reception from the car park.[/quote]

I think the thread refers to "personne physique" rather than "personne morale".

Translating into english from my customary "barrack room lawyer legalese"...... Joe Bloggs & McDo!

[Rjpfrancais]

Quillan wrote: "We 'bridge' ours through the server to stop hacking."

What does that mean?

[Quillan]

There are two Ethernet cards in the server (Novell) and I can control via the 'bridge' what goes between the two as they are effectively two separate networks. This can be achieved by using the MAC address's (or IP address's if you wish) to filter through so we can see the Internet but the network we are on cannot be seen by guests, it simply does not show on a Windows PC 'Networks'. I doubt anyone would hack in to our network but you never know and anyway it was fun setting it up. Seeing as everything is on a 192,168,x,x network and the serve also runs a DMZ we are virtually unhackable from the outside. 128 bit encryption is used throughout with Novell clients so it would take somebody a long time to get in and when they did they would be a bit disappointed as there is not really a lot of 'personal' information there. I guess the worst they could do is screw up my websites.

You can do something similar with Windows based PC's if you put two cards in one, create two networks and hang PC's of both although the controls are not as good as using either Windows or Novell server.

[Simon-the-censored]

Just curious - on the subject of someone hacking into your wifi network...

Has anyone ever experienced this or indeed know of anyone who has?

Specifically I mean someone hacking into your own unsecured wifi network and doing damage / causing you problems / nicking your stuff etc

No doubt it happens - I've just never spoken to / met anyone it's happened to!

Simon :-)

[cooperlola]

[quote user="Simon-come-lately"]Just curious - on the subject of someone hacking into your wifi network... Has anyone ever experienced this or indeed know of anyone who has? Specifically I mean someone hacking into your own unsecured wifi network and doing damage / causing you problems / nicking your stuff etc No doubt it happens - I've just never spoken to / met anyone it's happened to! Simon :-)[/quote]I have done it when authorised, Simon.  When my internet was down I used a freind's by parking in his driveway when he was out and using my netbook from my car.  But he gave me his password.[:)]  I didn't do any damage though!

[Rjpfrancais]

Thanks Quillan for the detailed explanation - I undesrstand now :-)

re Novell servers, wow haven't seen one of those for years! And I doubt your average teenage hacker would even know what one was ;-)

[Quillan]

[quote user="Simon-come-lately"]Just curious - on the subject of someone hacking into your wifi network... Has anyone ever experienced this or indeed know of anyone who has? Specifically I mean someone hacking into your own unsecured wifi network and doing damage / causing you problems / nicking your stuff etc No doubt it happens - I've just never spoken to / met anyone it's happened to! Simon :-)[/quote]

No not really. Once you have connected you may see the other computers on the network but then have to have set them up an 'account' and 'Sharing' activated on their HDD of part of it so in reality the chances are it will never happen. The most common way of 'hacking' in to a private computer is if the person downloads a 'keystroke Trojan' which records the keys you press against certain websites. Basically they are recording your login and passwords which they then send back to a computer whose owner either uses them to drain your bank or credit account or sells them on.

People buy all sorts of 'security' software to put on their computers mainly because they have read some magazine or Internet websites and become paranoic listening to all the stories. The thing is they don't need the half of it, they don't even need the Microsoft Firewall because the only thing it protects you from is somebody inside your own network. If you have a secure WiFi then the chances of somebody ever finding the correct key is virtually zero so they would not even bother to try for individuals like yourself and the rest of the people here.

Before people start jumping up and down think of this. The default Admin user IP address of every LiveBox is 192.168.1.1 and the default DHCP server within it starts at 192.168.1.10. That means that the first IP address issued is 192.168.1.10 so if you go on the Windows Start Button to "All Programs" - "Accessories" - "Command Prompt" which will open a little black screen and then type ipconfig and hit return you will get some information come up part of which is your IP address which with just one computer on the network will be within 95% (or higher) probability be 192.168.1.10. Now considering how many PC's there are around connected to LiveBox's and the fact that an IP address is to be totally unique how come most of us with LiveBox's all have the same number? In theory we would all be recieving the same data.

Firstly you need to know that any IP address starting with 192. cannot be seen on the Internet (read THIS for the explanation) this is because it's been specially allocated for private networks and the only way you can be seen is via NAT (Network Address Translator) and each 'private network' (that's what your side of the LiveBox is called) has one. A LiveBox has one because it is a router with a built in Firewall (that's why having one on your PC is pointless) and data is sent to your LiveBox with an extra piece of code that gets translated by the NAT and sent to your PC. The only people that can directly link your PC to anything is actually Orange who have the other end to all this and its kept a very, very secret so somebody would have to hack them to find you. The only ISP in the world that makes these tables available to it's users is Comcast in the USA.

The only thing that has a 'real' IP address is the ADSL side of your router, if you know how to 'look inside' your LiveBox you will find it's IP address and the French ones always start with 86 which means your in France and the LiveBox belongs to Orange, it's this that stops you accessing things like IPlayer for instance. Then there is another little smart thing your LiveBox does, it automatically changes the IP address on the ADSL side every two to four days so if you think of the IP address as a phone number and it gets changed every two to four days people would need to change their phone directory every couple of days to get the right phone number, in the end they would just give up, it's pointless trying.

I have tried to keep this simple for you and others to understand. There is a little bit more 'trickery' involved but you don't need to know. The best of protecting yourself is firstly, never, ever, open an email attachment unless you know exactly who it is from as this is how keystroke Trojans get on your machine. Always change the Admin Password on your Router (I wonder how many LiveBox's there are in the world with the password still set to Admin) and unless you know what you are doing it's best not to remove the WiFi Security Key on your LiveBox, in fact if you don't use WiFi I would turn it off. Don't install extra Firewalls because I said they are pointless and not only that they slow your machine down because they have to run all the time. Do however invest in decent Anti Virus software and make sure it also detects Trojans from websites you visit. I forgot when reading this through, it's common practice for ISP's to put the WiFi Security Key on a sticker on the bottom of the router, you should remove this because everyone knows where it is.

Just as a matter of interest I know a person who does not even have AV or a firewall on his machine and has not done so for many years. He never downloads files and he never opens emails from people he does not know and he has never, ever, had a virus or anything else. Lucky or what, absolutely no, not lucky just prudent.

[Simon-the-censored]

Quillan - wow ! Heck of a comprehensive response - Thanks for this :-)

Simon :-)