3 15Gb mobile broadband

matphil

Hi.
I want mobile broadband at the cheapest price possible.
3's 15Gb mobile broadband looks good but the 24 month contract is putting me off at the moment. What are your thoughts on this is there likely to be any better deals coming out soon as this one ends April 30th.
There are 4 of us who will be using this and for possibly 10-12 hours per day so 15Gb is probably what I would be looking at.

macman

How are you going to share between four-are you planning to use a 3G router, then wireless from that?
I rather doubt if 15GB will be enough for this level of usage, but of course it depends what you are downloading rather than the total hours online.
If you are using this in a fixed location, make sure you can get a decent 3G signal there on 3 before you buy, as without it you will be reduced to dial up speeds.

matphil

We will all be sharing the same laptop just using it at different times which is why it will be used for so many hours per day. According to the advert on Tv you can have up to 600 hours surfing with this.
It won't be used for downloading or using you tube or anything like that. I spend a lot of time on this forum and entering comps. Kids use it for facebook, bebo etc.
It will be a fixed location and I would need to check coverage first.

macman

I very much doubt if you can get anything like 600 hours a month though-3 website says 15GB equals approx 150 hours surfing-that would be just email and light surfing. Kids tend to use upload/download heavily, eg music, file sharing etc.
For £15 you could get a faster and better landline service, howeverI'm guessing you have no BT line at present.

matphil

I thought it was more like 150 hours as well but the advert on Tv does say up to 600 hours of surfing. I have a BT line at home and TalkTalk broadband this would be for when I go away in my caravan.

macman

Then main thing is to check the 3G reception-not clear if fixed or moving caravan. Bear in mind 3G reception is still very patchy out of the main cities in the UK.
I use 3 dongle in London-fine. But also in rural Devon-very variable reception.

culpepper

do bear in mind that all your windows updates will count as download aswell as virus definitions and updates to any other programs. The uploads will also count as part of the traffic so that includes pictures uploaded to the social networking sites.

matphil

There is a lot to consider I know especially as its a 24 month contract. I will turn off automatic updates.

robt_2

15GB is 500MB per day which is plenty for most users unless they are downloading a lot of files or spending a lot of time on YouTube or similar sites.

The Three website stating that 15GB = 150 hours of surfing is clearly not correct - thats 100MB per hour! You would use less than a quarter of that just doing the regular surfing that you describe.

izzwizz_2

I've bought this package a couple of weeks ago and have been very impressed with 3. Customer service was fantastic. Checked that we had 3G access before we bought, and they do a 14 day cancellation if you're not happy, so you get a chance to try it out before you're locked in for the full period. We had a vodaphone dongle previously with no 3g access on that, and there's no comparison for us on the download speeds. Also very simple to set up and use.

Network coverage varies from area to area, so check that out first.