pay as you go gprs via laptop / pcmcia card - which is the cheapest option?

buglawton

I am rigging up web & email access for a relative who has his laptop in his room in hospital & has been given the nod to use GSM there (he's stuck there for the long term). Have purchased an unlocked gprs dual band pcmcia card for him but no sim yet. What is the cheapest option - which sim to get? Is there perhaps a monthly contract that would make light surfing more economical? He expects to be out in 3-6 months so a minimum 1 year contract is NOT wanted.

Also any tech details that simplify the setup appreciated. I have looked around for a website that summarises the competing tariffs and outlines the setting up but no luck there - if you know if such a site, let me know too!

Cheers
Nigel

ABH_3

Sorry to dissapoint you, but there isn't a "cheap" option as of yet in the UK for GPRS, but then everything is relative. So what I may class as "expensive", you may class as a cheap night out

Going on memory, there were a couple of months ago "Vodafone Mobile Connect" which was £80 per month for 1000MB, "Orange World" which was £4 for 4MB or something like that. The requirements were however that you needed a contract with the networks as VMC and OW were an addon. Though you could purchase a PAYG handset on Orange and use their OW service. Apart from that, 3 the network were supposed to be bringing out a service, but with some limitations though I can't remember what they were off hand.

Best advice, search google for "UK", "telecom", "3G" and of course "GPRS" as things are bound to have changed since I was looking.

HTH

espresso

You can buy an Orange PAYG SIM for £1 from their website and if you go to this page and click on the link near to the bottom of the page "save money with Orange extras" it spawns a new window, where it lists the various daily or monthly extra packages. i.e. 4Mb of GPRS for £4 per month or unlimited @ £1 per day.

buglawton

Very interesting advice, espresso, I checked it and am not yet sure if "160 minutes of dial-up Circuit Switched Data (CSD) or 4MB (worth £16) for £4" means the same as gprs access to the whole of the Internet! That info is well tucked away anyway. Will research some more in that direction.

Thanks

espresso

buglawton wrote:

Very interesting advice, espresso, I checked it and am not yet sure if "160 minutes of dial-up Circuit Switched Data (CSD) or 4MB (worth £16) for £4" means the same as gprs access to the whole of the Internet! That info is well tucked away anyway. Will research some more in that direction.

Thanks

I agree that the orange website is not the easiest site to navigate and I can't at the moment find what I found earlier! where it mentioned an unlimited extra at £1 per day.

Think of Circuit Switched Data, like using a dial up modem connection on a PC, where you are charged by the time that you are actually connected.

With GPRS, you are charged for the actual amount of data transfered, and you can still make and receive calls at the same time, like when using broadband.

I used it while on holiday to e-mail and surf the net etc. and Orange Open World is not a walled garden like 3 is, i.e. full net access.

Others may know of better deals with other providers, but it gives you an idea anyway.

:wave:

buglawton

Hearing that Orange World is not a walled garded is good... why don't Orange make this obvious? "Orange World" sounds a bit like "Wayne's World" ie a world unto itself!

Meanwhile I'm looking for the cheapest options - that does mean cheap I realise. Are all Orange contracts (even where they offer no subsidised hardware) a minimum of 1 year?

Cheers

jakemuk

you could always try a wi fi card and see if any hotspots near by >

Doublespresso

advice from another coffee lover

This was discussed in detail in another MSE forum

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=107229

Your best option is Orange PAYG £1/day unlimited although this is bound to end soon.

buglawton

Thanx for that cross-ref, I am wondiring whether to post there in future after having a good look. Or will our Moderator move this to the phone zone?

buglawton

Since I last posted here, Virgin have put up the price to 0844 numbers to 15p/min with no discount after 5 mins. So the while-travelling system that worked quite well, using the Tiscali 0844 internet access number together with Tiscali's Onspeed-like accelerator, is suddenly uneconomical.

Any other suggestions how to get Onspeed like functionality using an 0800 or 0808 or 01- type of number? Or any other accelerators out there that don't require an annual sign-up?

BarGin

You could pick up a Sierra Aircard 750 on ebay quite cheaply (I recently had one for sale with a £10 starting price and didn't get any bids!).

This works great with either a T-Mobile PAYG or Orange sim (both charge £1 per day on PAYG).

Alternatively T-Mobile's Web & Walk Professional is available in conjunction with their £7.50 sim only contract for an extra £10 per month. With this option you get 2gb a month laptop access and it's only a one month rolling contract.

BarGin