Communication
Nowadays, it becomes very hard to live without being "over-connected". When you will be in Great Britain, I'm sure you will need to things:
Mobile Phone
It's very important to have a UK phone number when you will be in London. Indeed, if you give a French phone number at an employer, he won't call you back if he do not want to spend more money calling a French telephone.
The first choice you will have will be the service. "Do I want a pay as you go service in order to be independent or a pay monthly service in order to know each month how it will cost ?". It is hard to find a plan (pay monthly service) for only three months, and I didn't want to open a plan and to stop it three months later. It's why I choose a pay as you go Sim card for my mobile.
The second question before choosing an operator for your mobile phone is this one "Will I use it to call France or to call other UK mobile phone?". If like me, you often need to call France (parents, girlfriend...) you had better to choose Mobile World, which provide international calls between 0.05 and 0.15 £ (0.07 £ to France). But if you need your mobile phone only to find a job or to call or text people in London, you will probably choose an other operator like Virgin, 3, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Tesco Mobile...
Broadband
If, like every Efrei students, it is difficult for you to live several days without checking your email or surfing on the web, you will be happy to hear that it wasn't so difficult to have internet in London.
Free way
If you don't want to pay to access internet, I know three opportunities:
- If you are going to live near to Oxford or Regent street, you will be able to use internet in the Apple Center (picture in the right) which open a few years ago. Indeed, there are a lot of demonstration macs connected to internet, and the staff won't blame you.
- During three month, I worked as a web developer. Thanks to that, I could use the computers at tea break or lunch time. Try to find a job in the IT sector and you will be have a free access to internet.
- If you need internet only one day per week or if you live near UCL, you can use the UCL cluster rooms.
Expensive way
The classic way is a little bit expensive... You have 2 choices:
- Use services provided by internet cafés. There are a lot of internet cafés in London. Search for one when you know where you will live.
- If you are rich or if you have a lot of friends who can pay with you, you will be able to open a phone line with BT, and then choose a broadband operator. You have to be careful of one thing: if you open a line and a broadband, you will have to pay for one year even if you stay 3 months.