Broadband with no landline

atheist

Hi there

Am looking for the best package for general day to day medium usage without the need for a landline. My laptop is wireless enabled and I havent got any wireless servers or dongles so will need to factor this in.

Am aware virgin do the £10 a month intro package for 6 months.

Has anyone got any comments on this area please?

Many thanks in advance

Matt

cornishpasty83

sounds like you'll have to go for mobile broadband, which is about £15 a month and you get the USB dongle thing free.

MORPH3US

Can you get Virgin Media in your area? If you can then that would be better value for money (although not necessarily cheaper) for you.

However if you can't get Virgin Media than its mobile broadband or nothing really (unless you piggy back on someone else's unsecured wireless but we wont go there).

How much do you class as "medium" usage? If you can't tell us in terms of GB's then just tell us what you typically use it for.

atheist

MORPH3US wrote: »

Can you get Virgin Media in your area? If you can then that would be better value for money (although not necessarily cheaper) for you.

However if you can't get Virgin Media than its mobile broadband or nothing really (unless you piggy back on someone else's unsecured wireless but we wont go there).

How much do you class as "medium" usage? If you can't tell us in terms of GB's then just tell us what you typically use it for.

Thanks to all replies so far. I guess am looking at 2-3 hours per night maximum with not very much content or media download.

Virgin are available in my area but what are the pros and cons versus mobile broadband? Speed/reliability/customer services?

MORPH3US

Speed = VM hands down 2mb is cheapest although you can get up to 20mb if you really want it.

Reliability = When its working VM is great, if you ever have to deal with CS then they are usually rubbish (based in India) but for me its worth it the odd time for the cost. Depends on mobile signal in your area... these things work on 3G so you need to check.. have a look on http://www.three.co.uk/personal/products_services_/mobile_broadband_/index.omp and bottom right there is a box for your postcode and house number... should give you an idea.

Customer Services = VM suck but then so do most mobile networks CS so mobile broadband may be as bad?

At the end of the day mobile BB will never be as good as cabled BB. The costs vary... I got a great deal for my parents @ £7.50 a month for 7.5GB download limit but I don't think you'll get quite that good now.

However whatever your D/L allowance, if you go over it you'll get shafted with big costs... VM BB is "unlimited" however.

The big advantage of mobile BB is you can take it wherever you go...

atheist

MORPH3US wrote: »

Speed = VM hands down 2mb is cheapest although you can get up to 20mb if you really want it.

Reliability = When its working VM is great, if you ever have to deal with CS then they are usually rubbish (based in India) but for me its worth it the odd time for the cost. Depends on mobile signal in your area... these things work on 3G so you need to check.. have a look on http://www.three.co.uk/personal/products_services_/mobile_broadband_/index.omp and bottom right there is a box for your postcode and house number... should give you an idea.

Customer Services = VM suck but then so do most mobile networks CS so mobile broadband may be as bad?

At the end of the day mobile BB will never be as good as cabled BB. The costs vary... I got a great deal for my parents @ £7.50 a month for 7.5GB download limit but I don't think you'll get quite that good now.

However whatever your D/L allowance, if you go over it you'll get shafted with big costs... VM BB is "unlimited" however.

The big advantage of mobile BB is you can take it wherever you go...

Thanks again, so far. Looks as am covered on the 3mobile coverage. Just the conundrum between the fact that on the lowest tariff (£10 p/m for first six months) VM require you buy a router for £40 which over 12 months (the contract period in affect) is an extra £4ish.

More helpful opinions like these defo welcome!!

MORPH3US

Is that a wireless router?

They never made me pay for my cable modem when I signed up so I assume it must be.

I got my wireless router for £20.

billsavings

atheist wrote: »

Just the conundrum between the fact that on the lowest tariff (£10 p/m for first six months) VM require you buy a router for £40 which over 12 months (the contract period in affect) is an extra £4ish.

Perhaps the £65 cashback available from www.cashbackkings.com will help.:D

atheist

MORPH3US wrote: »

Is that a wireless router?

They never made me pay for my cable modem when I signed up so I assume it must be.

I got my wireless router for £20.

Yes its a wireless one router. I am going to give them a call see what deal they can do for me!!

MORPH3US

Hopefully they should give you a router for free mate. If not then you can get them a lot cheaper than £40

windra

Mobile broadband is notoriously bad, it is slow in most areas.
Virgin on the other hand are the fastest internet providor out there, and whenever i have called its been to a call centre in wales.

When i took cable with them it was cheaper to have the phone line as well as the tv & broadband i wanted because of the deal they had at the time.

you could check ebay for a cable netgear router, i got mine free when i signed up and they sent me two, by accident. I gave one to a friend and it worked fine on his cable.