Pogolink operate a high quality, low cost subsidised telephone service from some flat's landline.
This service is exceptional value for money and considerably less expensive than "inclusive" call plans or calling cards purchased either before you travel or from local shops.
Calls form cell phone are between 5 to 200 times more expensive.
Foreign visitors staying for several months should not bring their cell phone for a number of reasons;
1) Most Cell phones from the US use CDMA (a standard used only in the US) - although newer cells support the GSM standard, which will work.
2) Foreign cells may be 'locked' so you probably can't put a UK SIM card in to the phone to save money.
3) Roaming charges are excessive - and you will be charged international charges for calls to and from the phone.
4) You can purchase a new telephone for less than £10 - calls to the phone will be free (from UK phones) and outbound calls will cost far less
Internet access fees and charges.
Wireless Internet is available within the common areas within each apartment.
You may be provided with an account if your faculty subsidises Internet Access, if so you should enter this when prompted.
Subsidised Account
If your faculty subsidises your Internet access, you will be provided with an account by email. You may be asked to confirm your details at any time, if so you will be asked to pay a single £2.50 administration fee by Credit or Debit card. This is to comply with European Regulations that make it necessary for us to keep records in to identify each user on our network with an audit trail.
This account will allow you 2,000 minutes of access each week, with a bandwidth allowance of 1,500 MB per week, for the duration of your stay. This account is automatically topped up each week (every Saturday Morning).
Accounts can be used by only one person on a single computer at a time, and user ID's and passwords should be retained as they will be needed to log on each time.
If you exhaust your allowance and need to top up, you can purchase one of the options below. This is separate to your subsidised allowance and you can chose which account you wish to use at login.
Payment Options
If you do not have a faculty account or wish to supplement your allowance you can choose one of the the below options:
* £6.50 - 3,000 Min's / 2 GB download allowance - Valid 7 Days
* £10.00 - Unlimited Mins - 7 GB download allowance - expires after 7 days
* £10.00 - 6,000 minutes / 4 GB download allowance, expires after 30 days
* £25.00 - Unlimited minutes / 8 GB download allowance, expires after 30 days
As a guide the £10 / 6,000 minute option provides typical surfing and Instant Messaging for four hours each day plus 1,500 Emails and 200 attachments.
Why the Download allowance ?
Since you're not on campus but in a residential area, large numbers of computers can make the service slow for everyone, so to maintain a good service for all some restrictions are necessary.
You should not use your computer to access the following legal or illegal material:
File or folder sharing (P2P)
Video Sharing Websites such as YouTube (occasional use viewing short clips is allowed)
Video (Including Internet TV, Streaming, Movies, Video Internet calls or video calls)
Slingbox, Tivo, BBC iPlayer or any remotely controlled video players
Video, TV or Movies such as hulu, Netflicks, iTunes or any other site
Streaming material such as Internet Radio, iTunes or iPlayer, Pandora, AOL Radio, Slacker, WinAmp, Spotify etc.
On-line video games, including gaming systems such as X-Box, or Play Stations.
Warning If you access this type of material your allowance will be used very quickly and your account will expire.
Video Calls such as MSN, Skype, SightSpeed or Gizmo Project - Although this is not encouraged you may make such calls, but be aware video connections consume large amount of data and you could exhaust your bandwidth allocation very quickly.
Legal Considerations
Although you are forbidden to access the above material using our network, you can access this material at an Internet Cafe or somewhere else. Please consider the following advice.
Copyrighted material which may be freely available in your home country may not be legally obtained within the
UK. This should be considered by students who normally download material at home.
This is because copyright owners have different exclusive distribution deals in each region of the world, this it can be illegal to download a TV show even if purchased "legitimately" for example via a US originated iTunes account and Credit Card.
Note that Internet providers within the
UK
must co-operate with the authorities and must identify the user and computer (including it's serial number) used to illegally obtain or distribute copyrighted material. This means you computer may be seized for evidence by Authorities at International boarders. You may also be arrested, refused entry, exit or receive a considerable fine and have to appear in Court.
The RIAA cooperate with
UK authorities to track offenders across international boarders, where penalties may be more severe. (
Chinahave recently sentenced a man to death for copyright offences).
General Advice
Before setting off:
Perform all the software updates possible, some update can cause issues, it's better these occur before you leave your country.
Update your anti-virus program and run a full scan – you'll probably swap USB memory cards with others when you're away, so better safe than sorry.
Check your firewall is enabled.
Go to an Internet Cafe and make sure you know how to turn on and off your wireless and check you can send and receive email.
If you want to watch TV shows, video or films, put them on your laptop before you leave. Note that some European DVD's may not work in your laptop.
How to connect:
Turn on your wireless adaptor
Look for the strongest Pogolink signal
Connect and open your browser.
You should see a Log-on page displayed after a few seconds.
If you need to buy a voucher, click the link and follow the instructions.
Enter your Username and Password - both are case sensitive.
Keep a safe record of your username and password, do not share it with others or use it on another computer.
Note: You may find it possible to use another Wireless access point if the one you're using fails to connect.
Major faults are automatically reported.
Please remember, we can't help you fix your computer, if you can't connect to the help page when others can, you must take your computer to a repair shop.
Please report Internet problems direct to us and not via the fault book or your trip organiser, problems reported to via another party will always take longer to resolve and you will be asked to contact us via http://help.pogolink.com
By visiting this help page we log information about your laptop and it's settings. This helps us to resolve any problem quicker and ensures we have all the information necessary to find the problem quickly.