Travel Technology - Free Dial Up Access in Europe

Does anybody have URL's for free dial up access in various European countries?

I have two so far:

Switzerland: www.tiscali.ch (http://www.tiscali.ch) (in order to set up your account, you have to read French, Italian,or German). You also have to make up an address for yourself in Switzerland. There is one dial up number and it costs somewhat elevated prices for the phone call, but the access itself is free.

Italy: www.tiscali.it (http://www.tiscali.it) (in order to set up your account you have to read Italian). You need to invent an address in Italy. Here, too, there is one dial up number for the whole country but it is charged at local telephone rates.

In Switzerland, Sunrise (http://custhelp.sunrise.ch/cgi-bin/rightnow_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?_lva=&p_faqid=3748&p_created=1069239398&p) has a free dialup number which doesn't require any registration. Regular phone charges, and pretty slow though.

In case the link goes down:

User Name : sunrise
Password : freesurf
Dial-up number: 0840 555 555

Primary DNS : 194.158.230.53
Secondary DNS : 194.158.230.54

Monahos, I thought that the 0840 number meant that the rates for surfing apply, just as with Tiscali.

In the UK:

http://www.freeserve.co.uk

http://www.beeb.net

I've also used a free service in Poland run by TPSA (I forget the details). If this service is still up and running then there should be details in most hotel roooms.

When I cannot find a local free ISP, I use a pre pay Internet roaming service:

www.maglobe.net (http://www.maglobe.net)

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Dovster:
monahos, I thought that the 0840 number meant that the rates for surfing apply, just as with Tiscali.</font>

You are correct. I meant 'regular rates' as in regular surfing rates, which in the past when I still used dialup (ADSL was only introduced a few years ago here) were pretty much the same as voice rates.


The current 0840 rates are lower than voice rates:

- voice: 4.80CHF/hour day, 2.40 CHF/hour evening+weekend

- surf: 2.80CHF/hour 8-16h weekday, 1.80CHF/hour 16-22h weekday + 8-22h weekend, 0.70CHF/hour 22-8h

[This message has been edited by monahos (edited Jan 03, 2004).]

Internaut,

There is a problem with both of them. Because you have to provide a credit card, you have to supply an address in England which has that card as the billing address.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Dovster:
Internaut,

There is a problem with both of them. Because you have to provide a credit card, you have to supply an address in England which has that card as the billing address.</font>

Can't comment on beeb as I'm not able acceess the sign up part of their web site. As for Freeserve, try:

http://www.freeserve.co.uk/time/noties/default.htm

You're right. Freeserve solves the problem for England. Does anybody have any suggestions for other countries?

For Germany try Freenet. The cost is approx. 2.5 Euro-Cents/minute.
Dial number 0101901929 from any German phone.
Details (in German language only) see
http://www.freenet.de/hilfe/einwahl/win9x/verbindung/index.html
I am sure you will understand if you have ever used dial-up connections before.

this is Travel Technology appropriate. Great topic, let's rejoin over there.

--richard, moderator

Torsten,

I was able to set up a dial up network in my computer but I just made up a user name and password. Do I have to sign up with them? If so, where? (Remember, about the only German I speak is enough to get me into trouble in a bar in Hamburg.)

I believe that it is Swiss Telecom that runs "bluewin.ch" I set this up several years ago, but my memory is this:

I had to buy some very inexpensive software. I found it at the Interdiscount chain store.

Once installed, the dialer uses a toll free number from anywhere in Switzerland. As for all local calls, there is some small charge, but there is no membership fee or connect time charges for the internet onramp.

Hope this is useful.

In the UK there's BT Click! (http://www.btclick.net). It's charged at a local call, an no registration is required. It does require that the line has CLI (called line identification), basically that the caller id of the line shows up to BT. The manual instructions if you're using a Mac or another OS are here (http://www.btclick.net/html/download/instruction_95.html).

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Teacher49:
I believe that it is Swiss Telecom that runs "bluewin.ch" I set this up several years ago, but my memory is this:

I had to buy some very inexpensive software. I found it at the Interdiscount chain store.

Once installed, the dialer uses a toll free number from anywhere in Switzerland. As for all local calls, there is some small charge, but there is no membership fee or connect time charges for the internet onramp.
</font>

Bluewin's current offer is similar to the Tiscali one described by dovster in his first post: signup required (with Swiss address, fictive or not), free access, dialup '0840' rates. The local numbers have been discontinued, and there certainly isn't any toll-free number.