Mobile Broadband? Which One?

[jaymanek]

Hi People,

Im going to be on the road a bit in 2010 it seems so its going to be imperative to me that I can access my emails and internet via a laptop..
I havent got one yet but will probably get a small sony vaio or something.. I liked the look of them at the airport..

Anyway, ive never looked at Mobile Broadband and just wondering if anyone has any experience?

I want one with good coverage and relatively good speed.

It seems Vodafone, O2 etc all want you to sign up to a long period for around £15-£25 a month.

Question is are the networks reliable? Im not going to be doing a huge amount, only replying to emails and light browsing..
Is 3GB enough?
Whats the speed like with these USB dongles? I always thought it had to be a network card.

Any tips appreciated..

 

[davidjpowell]

I have a Vodafone 3G dongle, the idea of which was to use when on overnights rather than paying some of the daft fee's for wireless internet. I still have to pay the daft fee's as the reception is generally not very good and it is very rare that I can pick up 3G even when around the M25 ring.

I think it comes down to looking at what areas you expect to be going to and who has the best coverage.

I think some of the operator's do free laptops if you sign up in store.

 

[wemorgan]

Hi Jay,

Just in case no one gets back to you then I can recommend this website:

Independent Mobile Broadband Comparison by thinkbroadband

I've not used mobile broadband myself, but I have used that site for home broadband and found it useful.

 

[gaz_l]

Hello Jay,

I've been considering dipping my toe into the water as well, but I'm put off by the long contracts as you mentioned. However, some of the PAYG mobile contracts that are cropping up look like they might be worth a punt.

You'll have to pay for the modem, but generally they are less than £50 so not a huge outlay. 2 deals that look useful are 1 from T-mobile, which is a flat fee of £2 a day, but only on the days when you use it - this might work if you are only travelling one/two days a week, for example? Or the other one I've seen is from Vodafone, quite expensive at £15 for 1GB, but this stays usable for 365 days, unlike most of the others which expire after 30 days.

Although it's undoubtedly going to be a more expensive way of surfing on PAYG, it might be worth it to try coverage etc. as you're travelling. If you're happy with a given service, you could then plump for a fixed term contract to bring the costs down.

That's the way I'm looking at it at the moment, anyway.. HTH.

Cheers,

Gaz

 

[mw_C32]

I used one once and found that as I have internet access on my phone you can use that instead of a dongle.

If you have a Nokia use PC suite. I now have an iPhone and use that via USB and seems to be OK for emails and web viewing though a bit slow. I never got much faster speeds from my dongle either.

Mark.

 

[jaymanek]

Thanks guys... looking around it seems Orange seem to have the best coverage!?

I find that odd as when i was on orange phone, the reception was the thing that made me switch to vodafone!

 

[d w124]

Don`t know about the rest,but T-Mobile is useless

 

[gaz_l]

Thanks guys... looking around it seems Orange seem to have the best coverage!?

I find that odd as when i was on orange phone, the reception was the thing that made me switch to vodafone!

I find that hard to believe.. I switched from Vodafone to Orange for voice and I'm about to go back, as I've found the Orange coverage poor in comparison. It's particularly annoying that I can't get a signal in my office at work and have to go outside to make a call!

The other thing to bear in mind is that you'll only get a decent connection speed if you can get a 3G connection - dropping back to GSM will be disastrous, I'd imagine. Using my old 6320i as a dial-up modem, I'd consider myself lucky if I could 14.4K..

Cheers,

Gaz

 

[RichardM]

Don`t know about the rest,but T-Mobile is useless

I'll second that. My work recently switched from Vodafone to T-Mobile and I've also got a T-Mobile wireless dongle and the coverage (both 3g and GPRS) is poor. As has been said above Orange claim they have the best 3g coverage but I've also never been disappointed with Vodafone.

 

[Piff]

Don't know much about this but......
My eldest is at university at Norwich and took out a new phone contract with 3. For £20 a month he gets 200 mins calls, unlimited 3 to 3 calls, unlimited texts & unlimited internet access and a nokia 6700. He is very impressed with it.
3 - Pay Monthly - Find a plan - Internet Texter
I think the same deal was offered at £18 a month a few weeks ago.
There must be someone cleverer than me who could advise if a mobile phone can be hooked up to a laptop for a better web experience.
When he took his deal out there were also phones with qwerty keyboards available too.

 

[Stratman]

There's a difference between 'unlimited internet' on a mobile phone and using the phone as a tethered modem, which is what you're describing.

At work we've all got the firm's Blackberrys with unlimited internet. The firm have a very strict 'no tethered modem' policy, as they get hammered for data charges from byte 1.

 

[jimti]

The favorite among truck drivers seems to be 3, on their PAYG £15 per month contract, as I work overseas all the time I still haven't got one,
I would look on the different company sites for area coverage before you make any decisions though

the top one of these is the most popular amongst the drivers I know of who use dongles

 

[jaymanek]

3 seems to get some bad reviews...

looks like orange or vodafone so far then.

 

[stevesey]

I have a Vodafone PAYG 3G dongle (the only on on offer with no 30 day limit) £15 per Gb. Usually get 3G OK, so speed is fine, only really use it for webmail access and some light browsing, have saved the mobile/low bandwidth options for some sites for when I'm using it, so it's not costing
me much at all.

 

[High-Lo]

As mentioned above, I have the Vodafone PAYG which lets you top up for £15 for 1Gb but lets you spread this out over time so I can make the £15 top up last for 6 months easily as when I'm out and about I only use it lightly for browsing and emails. I also have the 3 one which charges £10 for 1Gb per month PAYG but found that I wasn't using up the 1Gb for a month so moved over to the Vodafone one. Reception on Voda seems to be better than 3 for me too. The Voda dongle cost me £35 with a £15 top up included.

 

[bennesspipers]

Im on an Orange dongle when i'm away from home. Occasionally it will lose connection,but so did '3'. Virgin promised a good connection which turned out to be the worst i'v tried. Orange customer services are very helpfull, unlike '3' whose staff didnt understand how to access a PAYG voucher (i'm on contract with Orange now).

 

[gaz_l]

The Voda dongle cost me £35 with a £15 top up included.

That sounds like good value to me.. might look into that one further. Actually, as I'm going to move my voice contract back to Vodafone in the near future, I might try and blag a free dongle.. don't get if you don't ask

Cheers,

Gaz

 

[Mark300SL]

I have a contract Vodafone 3G dongle for when I stay away, 5gb a month and I often use a large chunk of it streaming Iplayer etc
Most of the time I do get a 3G signal but occasionally it drops to 2G, very rarely is it completely unuseable. Even under good conditions its not as quick as being at home but its not slow either.



Whilst on the road get the McDonalds POIs for your sat nav as just about every Maccy Ds has free internet access and you could always grab a cup of tea if need be
The alternative would be to get an Iphone or similar, My Nokia N97 does email, GPS, and web browsing quite well as well as incorporating VoIP and a half decent camera


Mark

 

[jaymanek]

Thanks all..

Ive got a blackberry but its not really good enough for what I need.
I have a few email accounts and outlook (or windows live) is the application I use most frequently.
I also need a proper web browser for various things...

Vodafone certainly is getting the thumbs up here but on paper Orange seems to have better coverage...

right... now I need to get me a laptop..

 

[timskemp]

Orange and Voda would be my choice. T-Mobile have iffy coverage outside of cities, and seem incapable of even basic tech support. 3 is a sick joke in many areas. O2 are slow at resolving issues.

If you have a BT oneplan business account incorporating BT broadband you can get a BT dongle (uses Vodafone) free with 500meg/mth (IIRC). If you have orange already you can get a dongle free for 4.89/mth with 500 meg.

Buying a new laptop? get one with 3g built in - got a thinkpad to my left (came branded voda) with an orange sim in and it's much less hassle than a plugin, also the branded drivers for the dongles can be crap (as were the lenovo drivers, swapped out for generic sony ericsson ones).

Most of my users that don't complain are on Voda and Orange.