{"id":64902,"date":"2024-10-26T15:32:28","date_gmt":"2024-10-26T14:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/?p=64902"},"modified":"2024-10-27T10:45:38","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T09:45:38","slug":"money-saving-tips-internet-access-in-la-tania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/2024\/10\/26\/money-saving-tips-internet-access-in-la-tania\/","title":{"rendered":"Money Saving Tips: Internet Access in La Tania"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Now an essential part of any skiing holiday for travel & tickets, tracking apps, viewing webcams & auto camera spots, all manner of information and keeping in touch with friends & family. Mobile coverage, roaming data, local SIM cards, eSIM packages, broadband deals, fibre offerings, 4G\/5G modems and Starlink all explained here… As always, prices, tariffs and their conditions of use change all the time so always check the small print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mobile Coverage 4G\/5G<\/strong>
La Tania has it’s own 4G mast situated at the top of the beginners area and disguised as a fir tree! In inter-season it offers fantastic performance of over 100MB downloads – while certainly slower in the main season it does offer a very decent internet access solution. Manually roam on to the Free.Fr<\/em> provider if you have any issues.<\/p>\n\n\n

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5G is appearing more and more on phone connections around La Tania but often not with full strength signal and can be slower than 4G. Again, manual selection can improve performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Amount of Data Required<\/strong>
For a standard 6 days skiing holiday a 12GB allowance should be more than enough even for heavy users streaming a few movies during the week. For Seasonaires, long stays, shared usage, gaming and Netflix addicts then 12GB could get used very quickly. Bare in mind too that many places, bars & restaurants in La Tania and The 3 Valleys (and the airports) have free wifi plus the Tourist Office and S3V Ski Area Mgmt Co offer free and some paid for wifi packages too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Data Roaming<\/strong>
Many UK packages include some roaming in their UK deals inclusive data. Many Seasonaires for years used Three which always included use abroad but some were kicked off their tariffs a couple of years back. Those remaining on Three can use a maximum of 12GB per month when abroad on unlimited UK packages whereas GiffGaff (uses O2 network) only get 5GB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Geneva – Make sure you know if Switzerland is included or not!<\/strong>
A few people get caught out when roaming and travelling via Geneva. With Switzerland not being in the EU it may not be part of your included roaming package. Smarty (uses Three network) for example, which offers some excellent deals (\u20ac18 unlimited data, monthly contract via Money Supermarket) does NOT include Switzerland in their roaming countries 12GB included data. Lebara (from \u20ac6 for 10GB) and ID Mobile do not include Switzerland either even though they may include India & China for example!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three, O2, EE, Tesco Mobile and Vodafone (certain tariffs) do include Switzerland in their mobile data roaming bundles. Also be careful on Ferries (and Cruises) where they have an onboard 4G roaming service – almost certainly won’t be included in any data bundles and usually a rip off. The offered paid for Wifi service will be a lot cheaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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4G\/5G Modems<\/strong>
Becoming a common solution for some Seasonaires and Apartment owners. Free.Fr<\/em> has 350GB SIMs for \u20ac19.99 \/ month and 4G “MiFi” type routers can be sources from around \u20ac35. For some reason 5G Modems remain a lot more expensive, plenty of Three<\/em> branded ones available on eBay for around \u20ac120 and you can use Smarty SIMS in these “locked to Three” modems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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VDSL2 Broadband<\/strong>
Probably the cheapest Broadband service from \u20ac19 \/ month with no phone number and no long contract is from Sosh<\/em> (part of Orange \/ France Telecom). You can use your own modem\/router rather than renting their box for \u20ac2-\u20ac4 per month. Speeds generally vary from 15MB-50MB download but uploading can drop from 7MB down to less that 1MB sometimes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fibre (Superfast) Broadband<\/strong>
Being rolled out around La Tania and available to certain apartment blocks and chalets apparently. Some reports are not that great however and prices are from \u20ac30 per month after initial discounts if you can get it. Customer Service from all providers has a history of being poor and changing your provider is seen as a huge risk as suddenly you may be disconnected and it could take weeks to reconnect – things are improving slowly (we think). Speeds generally over 60MB are usually attainable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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eSIMs – Additional Data SIM<\/strong>
Can be a great option if you get near to your included data roaming limit. iPhone 11s & above and Samsung S20s & above all support this technology where you can buy a virtual SIM online and activate immediately. You can use your original SIM for phone use and all data can be from the eSIM for example. This Summer, Orange had a “Holiday Travel European eSIM” for \u20ac30 for 100GB of European Roaming Data valid for 6 months. It’s now \u20ac40 for 70GB but will be a decent solution for some. There are plenty of other option on eSIMs too and it can be well worth having especially outside of Europe (ask some La Tania locals who were in Qatar for the World Cup a couple of years ago!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Starlink – Satellite Internet<\/strong>
Now being used in La Tania and unbelievably easy to set up and get working. Download speeds of a consistent 300-400MB are the norm and the shoebox sized device that rotates to lock on to satellites even has a “snow button” to heat it up and avoid being covered during a heavy snowfall. It does require an unobstructed view of the sky so may not be suitable for all apartments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The price in France is from only \u20ac40 \/ month unlimited plus \u20ac369 for the hardware, P&P etc (there was a half price offer on the hardware this Summer too!). An unlimited “Nomad Roaming” option is available for \u20ac72 \/ month plus hardware of \u20ac369 – surely you could then bring it back to the UK and\/or take on holiday too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile in the UK, it costs \u20ac90 \/ month plus \u20ac473 for the hardware, P&P etc.
The “Nomad Roaming” option is available from \u20ac115 \/ month plus \u20ac383.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now an essential part of any skiing holiday for travel & tickets, tracking apps, viewing webcams & auto camera spots, all manner of information and keeping in touch with friends & family. Mobile coverage, roaming data, local SIM cards, eSIM packages, broadband deals, fibre offerings, 4G\/5G modems and Starlink all explained here… As always, prices, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":64904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Starlink_Logo.jpg?fit=1351%2C1351&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64902"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64923,"href":"https:\/\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64902\/revisions\/64923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.latania.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}