Club Arnage

Hi

dos anyone have some advice on supliers of wireless internet operators in France. Preferbly a flatrate conection as I would like to stream football and Le Mans?

Belive this to be more reliabel as disc, and i can get ekstra chanals easy.

Kenn

This subject is much discussed on an Anglo-French forum which I belong to.  The given wisdom is that most mobile internet here is cr*p.  However, I'm told this is the one of the best deals around for payg use:

http://www.laboutique.bouyguestelecom.fr/forfaits-mobiles-offres-internet/forfaits-internet-mobile-3G.html

Last year I bought an usb-modem from SFR (they have a shop at the Carrefour) and a prepaid card for mobile internet.  Worked fine for me to check mails, and load some pictures up.  I payed something like 69 € for the modem (with refund afterwards it came down to 39 €) and 39 € for 15h.  They also have a pass for 1 day (24 hours), which costs 9 €/day.

Speed was ok, about the same as I have in Belgium with mobile internet.  However on the sfr website they mention a limit of 75 Mb per day (with the pass for 24 hrs), which I think won't be enough to stream anything over a longer period.


Links :

Modems : http://www.sfr.fr/internet-mobile/cles-internet/?vue=00235e&vue=00235e&flush=1&sfrintid=hbolmid_dev_cle_bolmid
Prepaid cards : http://www.sfr.fr/internet-mobile/offres-internet-mobile-cle-internet-3g/les-offres-internet-3g-?vue=00235e&addFilter=&usage=occasionnel&sfrintid=hbolmid_off_pass_bolmid
 

It may have changed, as I did not make it last year, but McDonald's have free WiFi (although not for download streaming), the only drawback it that you are sort of obliged to eat their food.

And that's some drawback!  But yes, I think they still have Wi-Fi.  Whether one wants to spend the entire week streaming footie in a MacDo whilst something much more interesting is going on up the road though....

Please for the love of God avoid bouygues telecom. I had one of their 3G 'cles' for a year and it was just rubbish. It never worked when you needed it to and when it did the best it ever managed was GPRS connectivity (usually when next to a McDonalds where there is free wifi anyhow!). Also, very, very difficult to get rid of the thing (contract wise) at the end - along with most things in France you need to tell them an unreasonable time in advance, by recorded delivery (preferably personal delivery by armed guard in the case of bouygues) or they will charge a year's 'rental' for the pleasure of cutting it off on time.

For streaming the race, Kangaroo would seem to be the answer.
http://www.kangaroo.tv/kangaroo-sports/lemans.php
You can get 5€ off the 55€ price by quoting the promo code 24TRA10.
Haven't a clue about streaming football, but don't get involved in any deal which involves a subscription. As JDS says, they won't want to let you go.

I've been looking into this too for Team SAS with Landmand & Zozzer, but the information available on PAYG 'dongles' seems a bit sketchy.

A colleague is going to check for me at the weekend in his hometown of Metz.  I'll report back with options/prices early next week.

On a similar, yet different theme, is there a PAYG package for the iPhone?

IIRC Orange runs them in France?

Last year I spent a fortune due to keeping up with work emails/Twitter/other data-hungry uses, so I want a PAYG deal that I can use for June, and again in August when I'm off camping with the family.

Thanks in advance,

Paul [aka Landman]