Mobile Broadband

[PaulHull]

Sat in very wet and windy field (in nice warm caravan) on the North York Moors - now have mobile broadband so can use the net to see what's on (and type this!)

Anybody else got it / used it? Seems like a very useful tool athough I could not connect last night (but this morning it's great)

 

[Barking]

Good Morning Paul.

I am using a '3' connection, many miles south of you, and agree with you about it being useful.

Also as has benn pointed out on another thread, considerably cheaper than access offered by sites - when and where available.

 

[PaulHull]

My only critiscism is that it's pretty variable. Right now I'm pulling in about 1.5mbps whereas last night i was struggling to get 0.05mbps (think dial up!)

They claim to be upgrading the network tho so we'll see!

 

[JTS]

Paul (Hull) and Barking,

have considered using PAYG "3" for some time. I see that it can be used on the Continent. I was warned that it is quite expesive to log on to the Internet. I find you can not get answers to simple, basic questions from "3" website, in fact I found navigating round the website I usualy ended up where I started without answers. Would be grateful if you or anybody else who uses it could spare time to enlighten me.

1.Once you top up your account - do you have to use it in a certain time.

2. Today you logged on and read and sent emails and posted on this forum - how much did that cost.

3.If you were to logon and surf for say 30 mins what would be the cost.

4. The website says 3GB - what do you get in real time for that.

Thanks in anticipation for answers and any other info.

Good luck.

JTS.

 

[Allyson]

Hi JTS

We had the 3 last Christmas, fine in this country but we took it to France and we could not get online.

After buying internet access from camp site, we emailed customers service they finally got back to us ringing our mobile to talk us though it, this cost a fortune on our mobile.

They still could not do it, they then said they we speak to someone else and get back to us.

Sat on the beach I received a call saying that you needed to buy your voucher which we did in the u.k. and turn it in to talk time for abroad. This was never explained to us.

The guy told us to and buy another voucher in France, he would then ring us back ask us for the code and convert it into internet usage abroad. I said that we were no where near any shops that sold vouchers and why couldn't I pay him with my debit card over the phone and he could convert it for us. He replied he did not have the facility to do this.

We looked everywhere for a 3 voucher, but could not find one anywhere it is a network that France do not use.

When we came back I took it to my local 3 shop and had my money back, I said the reason we had the 3 was to use it abroad whilst on holiday to access the internet.

The manager asked us was we told that we could use it abroad at the time of purchase. We replied yes, he did not have much knowledge on the product, but he thought that it would not work abroad.

Anyway we had our money back.

 

[JD6620]

I tried 3 mobile broadband sometime ago without much success. We are on the limit of a 3G coverage. When it did pick up 3G it worked well, but would not work at all on 2G. I have recently purchased a T Mobile PAYG broadband which works very well. As we only used it when away in the caravan the T Mobile price structure was right for us, and it works on 3G and 2G although only at dial up speed on 2G.

 

[JTS]

Hi Allyson,

Thanks for coming back. As I said in my previous post, I found "3"s website a bit of a roundabout, however I did gleam that in France you use Orange Fr, SFR and one other although it does not tell you how. I have had limited success with Bt Openzone but with others I have tried I usually end up using the campsite link especially when its free. I have a feeling that any of the main phone networks will work out expensive and have limited access. We will wait and see if anyone else can enlighten us.

Regards JTS.

 

[Reg]

I use Orange PAYGo but only for emails. With orange you just use the normal PAYGo topup but it is twice the price using it in europe. They do supply you with an email account but I found it very hard to get a connection both here and abroad but if I use my normal email account it will connect anywhere. Don't ask me why! but must have a pop3 or emap (not hotmail) account.

I use my phone as a modem and one of the other advantages is that I can check for emails just from the phone and just download the headers, delete the ones I don't want and then link up to the PC to download the complete email and reply.

I didn't disable auto updates to the virus and windows once and it cost about

 

[gary]

On three with contract I get 1Gb for

 

[Barking]

I have never used 3 abroad so am unable to provide any assistance there.

My contract is not PAYG, I get 3GB for

 

[Guest]

A tip mobile broadband dongle users may find useful.

Find your self a 3/4 metre USB extension cable so you can move the dongle around for better reception, up in the roof light works well and I've also velcro'd to the TV aerial for maximum height to get a good signal ;0)

 

[foshy]

Hi,

Someone asked what 3 Gig per month equals. See below - these are approx and the information came from the Vodapfone web site.

5 hours surfing per day

Send and receive up to 75 emails per day

Download or upload 5 documents per day

Download 50 music tracks per month

Download or upload 250 photos per month

Software update - 1 per month

My guess is it's more than you need while mobile. If you need more, you need to sign up for 5 gig or even more per month rather than pay excess charges. The Vodafone system I use has a data usage tool with it, that records how long and how much data I have used in the current month - to date I have not been anywhere near the 3 gig limit.

Also, "euro" has a good point with moving the dongle around - it is quite surprising the difference it makes.