Hello. I want to get access to the Internet in the UK from my hotel
room for a cheap price. I will be staying in the UK for one week. I
would like to have access to a company that provides a free call from
my hotel room, and I can just connect my laptop from my hotel room,
without paying any call changes (because they are incredibly expensive
from a hotel room) so it must be a free call number. I would like to
use the Internet for 35 hours during that week and I would like the
total cost to be below $40-$50. (say below 35 pounds).

I have seen a company that provides this but you need to have your own
telephone number in the UK to set it up. I won't have this, as I will
be in a hotel room.

Please only respond if you have found a company that meets these exact
requirements, and I can sign up for a one week period and don't have
to continue with the same company.

Another way round your problem might be to use UK2 http://adial.co.uk/
You dial in through a local call rate number and there is no sign up
procedure.  Provided the call charges from the hotel to local rate
numbers are less than £1 per minute, you will be within your stated
budget.

A further refinement would be to use a calling card.  However, I many
people I know have had problems trying to set up the pin codes on
their modems.

It occurs to me that, IF there is a way of doing it, this service
would soon become popular.

How's this for an idea?

1: You call me when you want the Internet connection

2: I call you back and you then connect the line to your computer 

3: At my end, I route your incoming line to my cable modem (broadband)
for which I've got unlimited use.

I suspect that it's not as easy as it sounds (at my end) but ...

Who knows?

Oops, I meant to say per hour of course!

Hey, Tehuti, You got me all excited @ £1 per minute.

There are two major caveats:

1. Your hotel room phone may charge for, or block, access to free
phone numbers.

2. Most ISPs that have unmetered access only service BT (British
Telecom) lines, because they have interconnects with only BT. The
hotel may route its outgoing calls over another telephone company's
lines (more likely the larger the hotel).

If you can use their proprietary software (no SMTP mail or NNTP news)
you might as well sign up with AOL for a free month's trial. They
don't require a UK phone number to be specified.

Owain

Owain

Seemed like a brilliant idea ... A free month's trial with AOL!

However, AOL require you to give them your phone number and this may
not work through a hotel switchboard.