Three dongle not working in new house

top_drawer_2

hello,

I moved house this time last week and even though my new place isn't even 5 mins away from the old my 3 Dongle is refusing to work in my room. I am currently borrowing a housemates room upstairs to use it, this is obviously no good at all - I phoned the helpline and we spent over an hour doing various things none of which worked .........

The three deal seemed like such a good one (15gb for £15) .......... is there anything I can do and whats the next best deal if not??

Thanks

Jen

kwikbreaks

To work from indoors you need to be within about 500m of the cell.

You can check what cells are nearby using the Ofcom site - http://www.sitefinder.ofcom.org.uk/ - you need UMTS cells on 2100MHz

You should look at using a USB extension lead and fixing your dongle to a window facing the cell you are using. You could maybe get a tinfoil reflector working - the sizes are not so critical that these designed for 2100MHz won't work although for best results scale by 2400/2100 to make them slightly bigger
http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/Ez-10/

frugalmacdugal

Hi,

3 is rubbish.

Anybody know how to unlock a 3 dongle?

buglawton

Try the signal in your loft. If it works, consider buying a '3' 3g Wifi Router, it can be placed in the loft permanently and allow multiple computers to connect in your house. Maybe you can combine this idea with the tinfoil antenna method.

[ but note, that article seems t pertain to 2.4 gHz WiFi range extension rather than 3g which is around 2 gHz ]

GunJack

the 3 wifi router acts the same as any other router, it just takes it's surce from the dongle rather than a phone line, so the idea's sound

jenny2009

Just use a long USB lead and hang the dongle out the window. I know a few people who do do that.

Jen

Snakeeyes21

kwikbreaks wrote: »

To work from indoors you need to be within about 500m of the cell.

I think your telling porkies.
Im 2 miles from the nearest one and get a constant 2+mb on my 3 dongle :j

kwikbreaks

Snakeeyes21 wrote: »

I think your telling porkies.
Im 2 miles from the nearest one and get a constant 2+mb on my 3 dongle :j

If you have a clear line of site than the range can exceed 500m but I seriously doubt that your nearest cell is 2miles away. There is a 3 cell just over a mile from where I live and it didn't work at all for me so I returned it and got a Vodafone one instead.

456789

jenny2009 wrote: »

Just use a long USB lead and hang the dongle out the window. I know a few people who do do that.

Jen

it could get wet....

top_drawer_2

thanks everyone for the advice. I am going to go into the 3 shop tommorrow and speak to them about cancelling the contract. Hopefully there is another deal about that is as good which will work ........

Jen