Dongle advice

jermyn

how are you finding vodaphone? what is the connection signal like? how long can you use your £15 top-up?

Snakeeyes21

jermyn wrote: »

Having looked @ a few replies and posted a thread myself, my conclusion is: Don't expect too much from a dongle, Don't expect it to be the same as a phone line based broadband connection,Use it for essential internet access only i.e. emails and a bit of shopping(ordering from places like amazon and such, looking for holidays maybe and even checking your online banking) and if you get a reasonable connection signal you should be ok. It's better than dial-up but it's not proper Broadband.

That may be your conclusion but what is your experience of actually using mobile broadband?

Reading posts on forums usually gives a one sided view of what these services are like because you don't usually get people praising them.

Considering a lot of landline based services give less than 2mb/s with quite a few at less than 1mb/s I would say mobile broadband is on par with normal broadband, plus with 3's service of 15gb that is also on par with what many landline services have as a fair usage policy / cap.

Then theres what you can use it for, you can use exactlly the same things that you can use on a landline service, I play youtube and iplayer without any problems, use voip services to make calls, stream music / radio etc etc

So I fail to see where you have drawn your conclusions from

Just to back up my claims heres my speed taken a few minutes ago

ckerrd

pennyshahin wrote: »

Hi i'm thinking of buying a dongle for my laptop, i'm moving in with family they don't want to change their phone around , so i will be using a dongle all the time to search the web , i spend quite alot of time browsing, emailing, download songs very occassionally, watch you tube sometimes, what would you guys recommend as a monthly gb plan that i should go for to cover what i do, sometimes i might browse in the evenings for 4+ hours, and i use AVG and update it everyday will this eat into my allowance ,who do you recommend 3, vodaphone,orange,t mobile all advivce gratefully received- i'm in the stevenage area

What do you mean by the bit I have put in bold?

Personally for what you use I would be looking at a decent ISP.

kendalls_cave

My dongle connection is *always* good enough to watch Iplayer and stuff

crystals2632

signal good, using it now, can usually get on even with a poor signal. topped up 12/feb at 6.40 used 1 pound exactly. been on line hours. My brother bought one too and is more than happy with the service. never tried to watch a u tube video though.
being pay as you go as well it doesnt matter when you top up, as long as it is with in so many days, about 280 or something like that, cant remember so I need to check that bit.

ok update
if you purchased old model you could use your 1g or 30 days when ever you liked over say 4 months until the 3o days or 1g ran out. top ups cost £15 no less.
If you purchase after christmas the new dongle has 3g and needs to be used within 30 days or will expire. however you can top up with smaller amounts. I cant see on the website any other top ups but the amount of 3g for 15 quid. I think it said some where that it was equivalent to 90 hours online.

PlutoinCapricorn

Cristal, there is no direct connection with 3gb and 90 hours on line: you can stay online all day but will use up almost nothing if you do not do much.

3 give some estimates of what you can do with 1gb but they are very low: I suspect that this is intended to make you buy more.

Websites that are full of pictures and have links and affiliate marketing use up your allowance faster than those that don't. I allow myself an average of one gb per month or 12gb per year, which costs £5 per month: some people have told me that they use that much in a few days. I can't imagine what they can be doing!

pennyshahin_2

Hi i've ordered the 12gb prepaid dongle from dixons what about security as its wireless -i've got an acer and its got acer enetmanagement do i have to change settings or do anything to encrypt it-im a novice so im not sure about these things