3G Wireless card for Europe travel

[mac_h8r1]

A managing partner of our company is going on a trip through Spain, France, Italy, and Monte Carlo.

Other than an AT&T 3G card with a stupendously expensive international data plan, what options do I have? I'd like to have something ready for her to pick up at an airport or something.

Anybody have any experience with this? Different carriers? Vodaphone comes to mind, I don't know why.

[cheesyking]

I'm not an expert at this but roaming across different countries is going to be a nightmare as she'll be hit with insanely high charges as she crosses the boarder from whatever country she got the contract in. She might want to consider getting a new pay-as-you-go in each country she visits (if she's going to do a lot of downloading).

Just for reference here's vodafone uk's charges (a bit silly I know as she isn't going there and the prices aren't in Euros but it gives you an idea what it'll cost without speak French etc):

Contract:
If you use more than 25MB of data in a day, you’ll now pay £1 a MB up to 5MB, then £5 for every 5MB after that.

Pay as you go:
If you’re a pay as you go customer, you’ll pay just £2 a day for a daily allowance of 25MB to use in any European zone country.

so that's something like $3 for a few beefy web pages or a couple of chunky emails on PAYG.

The EU isn't that unified

BTW, do you get hit with big charges in the US if you go out of your carrier's area?