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For anyone who goes on hols often to France or Europe often, how do you organise data for your apartment?
We've just been lucky enough to buy a wee one bedroom place in the french alps. For our first visit, I just used the data on my uk mobile and connected to my hotspot. Would a French pay-as-you-go sim with a decent data allowance be a good way to go?
Any practical experience and advice about the best way to go? Our little valley is getting full fibre connections soon. The connection speed obviously appeals to me, but paying €30 per month, every month of the year seems like overkill to me.
I'd just stick with using your UK data I think unless you're putting in some remote monitoring/control stuff (i.e. heating control)
agreed. just use your uk data plan when youre there if it worked ok the first time.
I use my UK data plan. Check with your provider though, since brexit it's no longer free on some contracts, you may have to pay a daily usage charge.
In the grand scheme of things of owning & paying for a 2nd home abroad £300 a year is bu99er all, especially if you're going to be there often and/or renting it out, friends & family - it's always preferable to have a working wifi, and TBH essential this day & age.
It's like not having mains electricity to save the standing charge and relying on a portable generator.
GiffGaff limit you to 5Gb, Smarty is 12Gb, O2 is currently unlimited (all within the data allowance of your contact).
At my mum's place in Cyprus there is a village WiFi scheme that you can switch on an off as required and only pay for active days. It would be worth checking if there is anything similar where your house is.
Check with your provider though
This.
I pay £10/month for 60GB on a Smarty SIM. Data roaming to most countries is free.
By way of contrast, a fortnight in the US on my old O2 contract would've cost me hundreds.
but paying €30 per month, every month of the year seems like overkill to me.
SFR red fibre is €18.99 monthly.
Data roaming usually always has "fair use" limits such as 25Gb, which we routinely use up when going on a long holiday out of reach of WiFi.
Smarty has a monthly 12gb roaming allowance in the EU but you can buy more.
My Voxi mifi thing (£15 per month for 75gb on Vodafone) has a 20gb monthly roaming allowance in the EU.
How often are you using the apartment, and are you renting it out?
However if you rent it out and say it has wifi then you are have the faff of sorting it out when it goes wrong.
Been over a fair bit this year, on a mobile home site, did a load of research, ended up with Reglo Mobile €9.95 for 100Gb. Had the SIM card delivered to site but you can also buy at most E. Leclerc big stores. €5 one off charge for the SIM, put into UK phone to activate then popped into a MiFi dongle so mates can connect and also small enough and battery powered to take on rides and when travelling. SIM uses the SFR mobile network with good coverage and was regularly getting 50+ Mbps down load speed so good for watching streaming TV and sports. Was using my Sky mobile to start with but they charge £2 per 24hr when roaming.
pay £10/month for 60GB on a Smarty SIM. Data roaming to most countries is free.
I’m on SMARTY 60Gb/month. There’s a 12Gb/month cap on roaming, and now can only roam in the EU, unless you buy the ridiculously priced bolt-one. Roaming used to work in Middle East, Japan, US etc. but they’ve changed that in the last year and was a bit of shock when it got switched off and travelling for work.
I dont know if something simmilar exists in France, but my Spanish broadband ISP has a vacation plan its about 36€ per month, but I can email them when the place is empty and they switch it off in blocks of 1 month, the monthly bill drops to about 3.50€ per month when 'deactivated', so I can just email them to re-activate when I want.
It only works in blocks of one month, if you deactivate/reactivate part way through they charge the full month.
Might be worth seeing if theres an ex-pat facebook group for the area where you are, very useful for all that sort of info, also finding trustworthy mehanics, tradesmen etc.
This is all really useful thanks. We are not planning to rent the apartment out, at least, not commercially. If we were, then wifi would be a ‘must have’ imo. Some of the ideas above have been excellent, so thanks everyone for the ideas.
if your phone can take an e-sim thats a good path to go down for large amounts of data. 15 days unlimited data is ~£40
https://thesavvybackpacker.com/best-esim-france/
Hmm. I came across the term es I’m when googling for solutions. But I’m embarrassed to say I have no idea what on earth that is! More googling required.
Hmm. I came across the term es I’m when googling for solutions. But I’m embarrassed to say I have no idea what on earth that is! More googling required.
If you mean E-sim, it's simply a software version of a sim card, so rather than having to buy a phone with 2 physical sim card slots, or manually switch out sim cards, you can just change it in your mobile phone settings depending on which country you are in.
I have a flat in Slovakia, bought a dongle for 30€ and buy 100Gb SIMs on pay as you go for 8€ per go. Cheap enough and I just leave it there and use it when visiting.
Change your network provider? Popit - 100g unlimited texts & calls Uk AND EU roaming £25 per month