Internet Access in the USA

[PENCOYS PIRATE]

Just a question that some of you well travelled people to Florida may be able to answer.
As I understand, you can only access the net on board the ship via the ship computers. O.K, Fully understand this.

The question I ask is as follows:

I will be taking my laptop with me and wish to access the net when staying in our rented villa in Kissimee. How do you go about accessing the internet. Do you need to sign up with someone in the states?
Can you use your ISP from the u.k?
How much does it cost?
Can you recommend anyone?

Will be very grateful for any information around this subject.
Sorry I think my hubbie has posted this on the wrong site, but Im not sure how to get it on the right one
Pencoys Pirate

 

[vernon]

Some rental villa do have internet access so it's worth asking the owner/rental company if they have access and if not how you would be able to access the internet from their phone line. I would imagine you would have to have the owner's permission to sign up for anything if you're using their phone line.

Failing that there there are a number of internet cafe's along the 192, the ones I have used also had the ability to connect your own laptop if you needed to do that. Unless you're planning on spending hours on line, I think the cafe idea should work out ok.

 

[JANNYANS]

You need to sign up with a provider that is free to local numbers such as

http://www.budgetdialup.com/

and set it up on your laptop just check that the numbers you dial are local ones to the villa you are in so that you don't get hit with a bill.

 

[bubblefactory]

I use www.access-4-free.com . you can sign up with a UK address and CCard. It's $5 to sign up and the you get 10 hours per month free with additional hours at $1/hour. You get a list of local dial up numbers to use which are free from most villas or 75c per call from hotels.

 

[bubblefactory]

Just posted the above and two minutes later this email pings in :

We're writing with some important news. Starting June 1, 2005, Access-4-Free will no longer offer dial-up Internet access..........

Will have to find an alternative now.

 

[patdavies]

I have always used www.juno.com across the US.

It is free and when you spin it up, you can look for and use a local number. However, beware, not all the numbers in the same area code are local numbers.

This works fine for us when the villa has free local calls.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

I take a WiFi card and access Broadband in Florida via Boingo.
You can sit in many hotel lobbies and connect whilst having a cup of coffee etc..
Thsi list gets bigger every month of available access points.