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Month-to-Month Dial-Up 'Net Access in the UK?
Wee asks: "I'm traveling to London (from the US) this coming Saturday. For various reasons I need to be able to stay occasionally connected to the Net while there. Instead of risking one of my daily-use laptops to the rigors of travel, I've built a working Toshiba 430CDT laptop from parts, purchased an appropriate power adapter, equipped it with an old modem/10mbps NIC (plus an Orinoco card, just because), searched Google for temporary two-week, UK-based dial-up accounts, only to find... nothing whatsoever. Zip, nada, nothing. Maybe AOL, but I'd have to think long and hard at giving them a credit card. I did find some companies that would sell me a monthly plan, but there were usually minimums. Does anyone know of 'temporary' dial-up accounts (with various local PoPs) in London? Failing that, does anyone know of an ISP I can sign up with for only one month?"
http://www.jolt.co.uk They offer a very fast 0845 (price per min) dial up service that is free to sign up for.
London features am abundance of large internet cafes and if you forward your mail to an web-based account you'll be able to access it without a problem. British ISP's are not a pleasure to deal with and AOL's international rates are a rip-off.
Have fun in the UK,
Dirk
Assuming you already have a mail account that you want to access, then don't bother signing up to anything. There are many UK ISPs that offer "0845" access - these numbers are charged at local rate from anywhere in the country (don't forget that we still are charged for local calls in general), and make their money from revenue-sharing with the telcos, so you don't pay a bill to the ISP. You should be able to pick up a CD/Installer/Signup-Screen for one of these pretty easily.
Drop me a line if you need help - my employer offers such a service (usually through resellers, but anyway).
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
But, assuming you mean by an "Orinoco card", a wireless Orinoco card, you could always check for open community LANs in the areas you are travelling. At http://www.toaster.net/wireless/community.html there's a list of open wirless LANs, including four such LANs in the UK, one specifically in London.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
have you tried tham all?
ISPs aren't a breed they are people
as diverse as any other bunch of people
as other posters have said, get an 0845 local rate dial up
they are usually free to sign up, the ISP splits the call revenue with the telecomms company.
http://www.proweb.co.uk
is one of many
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Strictly this really shouldn't be said...but ill say it anyway...dunno if its legit or not. Force9 have a lax login policy, if all you want is basic services (get onto the net) then you can use the Force9 dialup information for there 0845 number and any login/password and it will let you on...as long as you have CallerID i think. Good ploy of Force9 imho, lets me use dialup when my DSL goes down without having to keep a active dialup account. In the UK, 0845 is local rate anywere number, so really theres no reason to have PoPs anymore (unless you get free local rate calls, then its worth it. as 0845 is at local costs, but isnt classed as local...hence i still get 10p a min charge on my mobile and it doesnt use my free minutes).
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
It's basically a BT dialin, but yahoo branded
0845 609 1350 (local call rate)
login: "yahoo" (but it seems to accept anything)
password: "" (again, it seems to accept anything)
DNS: 194.72.6.52
DNS: 194.72.6.59
DNS: 194.72.6.57
(it works with Linux PPP, using PAP auth)
As others have said, there are ISPs in the UK that don't require a subscription, but instead are funded through the cost of the local call to connect. I have used such ISPs myself, and I can confirm that they are quite convenient and don't require a credit card or suchlike.
The thing you need to be aware of is the cost of those local calls. The price varies from 1p/minute at weekends, to 3p/minute during office hours. The cost will add up. I have received phone bills for £60 for one months internet usage like that.
If you plan to be online for any length of time, you might want to look into the alternatives.
The other thing to be aware of is Caller ID. Many free ISPs, in order to reduce spam, will deny you access to e-mail if you block caller ID. Not just to their servers, but anywhere. Port 25, 110 and 143 will be blocked unless they can tell where you are calling from.
I hope this is useful
Why not just look for the warchalking logos on the pavement? Actually, warchalking symbols are quite rare in the UK, but open nodes certainly aren't... ;)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I have used freeuk's dial up service (with both Windows and Linux - even though its not listed as supported by them)
Although I haven't used it for a while (I think the last time was 9 months ago whilst setting up a new office whilst waiting for our DSL line to be fitted) one used to be able to sign up instantly for a free account.
There are many other free ISP's - just do a google search
As you well know, but our poster may not, the United Kingdom has different voltage, frequency, and outlets. Although almost all recent laptops come with switching power supplies which elegantly handle U.S. and all European voltages, it would be a bummer to blow a power supply (or a whole laptop) on such a thing. If your power supply is such a beast, it is probably labelled right on it "120-400V, 30-80Hz" or something of that sort.
As far as specifics go, for the UK, it's 50Hz, 230V AC. And Howstuffworks has a somewhat spiffy illustration of the plug appearance. Three flat prongs, two horizontal, one vertical for grounded plugs (which hopefully your laptop has). Two round prongs for non-grounded.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
Try a company like Freeserve. You can register online (i.e. before you get here) and use that to connect. You'll get charged for the price of a local call (1p/minute at weekends) to dial up, but otherwise it's free. You get a website/email account, but you'll probably want to use a webmail account or something for the short time you'll be here.
I've traveled to the UK at least once a year since 1995 for Internet conferences, and if I wasn't speaking I'd travel light and leave the computer at home.
There are several EasyInternet cafes in London -- one is just outside Victoria Station -- and it's a lot nicer on your body to carry an Easy login slip in your shirt pocket than lug a piece of computer junk around with you. EasyInternet operates on an auction basis -- when load goes up, the price goes up, and when it drops, you get more time per quid. You can loaf online all Sunday morning for practically nothing. I believe an account is portable between cafes, too. Just look for the large, bright orange signs.
I've never had anything stolen while traveling (knock on wood) but that's always a possibility, too.
I'm going to Zurich in January for a small private conference, and since I'm not doing a speech, the laptop isn't coming along for the ride.
In general, when traveling internationally, Americans carry way too much luggage. There's no reason to have more than one carry-on bag, period. The OneBag guide to traveling light is full of great advice on how to travel without carrying so much junk you wind up on a chiropractor's table.