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 One look at ATT's international plan and all hopes for using your iPhone as an iPhone in Europe disappear. Once the shock wears off, it is time to look for another way to access the Internet while out of the Country.

Europe does have plenty of Internet cafes, but you never know which place to trust and which not to trust. Since 3G is out for the average users, the next best choice is WiFi.

WiFi access has been improving across Europe with more and more hotels offering it. There are some free WiFi access, but it is still not nearly as prevalent as the US. Some of these places work, some of them don't and don't offer much help either.

In hotels in the old towns in many European cities, the buildings date back 500-700 years. The thick brick walls do not make for easy WiFi access. In one hotel, we had to hold our phones out the window to pick up the WiFi signal two floors below in the hotel office. In many hotels, the WiFi connections worked but were unreliable and often worked intermittently.

In one small town in Austria, we could not find access to WiFi at all. While the nice hotel in town said they had free WiFi in their cafe, we could not get it to work with the iPhone. The only other place advertising Internet access was an Umbrella Bar (literally a bar under a large umbrella). When asked if they had WiFi access, the bartender asked what kind of device we had. I answered that I had an iPhone and he laughed and said he does not like those small things. He had an old CRT monitor and computer that could be used for one euro per 15 minutes.

The only reliable place to find WiFi was the Apple Store in Munich. Late into the evening after closing time, desperate Internet seekers were huddled around the entrance to get access to their much-needed information fix.

1 Comment

1. Ralph ~ July 13, 2011 15:44
   In the UK, you can pick up a cheap pay as you go USB modem. I got an iPhone 4 microsim card from the Orange store in the UK for £20 that works in my iPad, it came with £10 of credit which a month later I still haven't exhausted.

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