I had to go into town today so I had a wander round the mobile providers.

As the post above says, with most providers you buy the dongle, then pay to add your download allowance. Typically at around £15/GB. Then there is a catch, with all except Vodaphone, your allowance only lasts for 30 days and you are then timed out and lose any unused "units". Vodaphone also had the cheapest dongle and the initial purchase included 1GB of downloads. 3 Was cheapest to top up. In effect for most operators PAYG is not really that at all, but a form of short term contract. A big con in my view.

With 3 you can use you PAYG units in any country where 3 has a presence. With all the others you can only use your PAYG units in the UK. The man in Vodaphone recconed that this is because the UK is the only country where PAYG is a significant part of the market. My own view on this is that it sounds doubtful, after all many of the mobile operators, Vodaphone included, have a presence over much of Europe so I can see no reason why PAYG units cannot be used wherever the operator has a presence as with 3. I suspect it has a lot more to do with it being difficult to apply the outrageous charges they make for using your mobile in Europe - once your units are payed for, that's it!

Overall I think the mobile operators are trying to discourage PAYG - they want everyone on contracts - more lucrative - and they can cane you for use abroad.

I believe the EU is taking a look at roaming charges within Europe and there is talk of forcing operators to reduce their roaming charges across the EU. It would be a good thing IMO. I am not convinced that the operators incur significant extra costs through enabling roaming - the high charges are just a device to make more money.

Overall, I will have to rely on wifi hotspots and/or hope the hotels have lan networks - many do these days - and hope usage charges are not too high.