which payas you go dongle?

ukmike

Ask others on your site what mobile dongle they are using & how good it is.

chris1973

Just be aware that 1gb isn't a lot by todays standard and is soon used. With pic and flash crazy webmasters and the growing trend to embed large graphics and you tube into social networking sites its easy to use your allowance in a short space of time just for general surfing.

I've just returned from a weekend away, and using my mobile connection to check emails, book hotels, general surfing of forums like this one i've just about 230mb of that 1gb allowance in just 2 1/2 days. If I was away for a longer 10 - 14 day break, I can see i would probably need a further top up meaning £30 for effectively 2gb worth of bandwidth :eek:

If you like listening to internet radio or streaming media like BBC Iplayer or watching utube videos then these activities eat bandwidth and you'll find this means of connection VERY expensive. But this is Jolly old Victorian England - we may see providers bringing out more usable 10 / 20gb allowances by about 2076

If you don't use the internet much and are a light user, and perhaps only connect for 2 or 3 minutes here and there, then I would be questioning the need for this anyway. You eat and drink don't you?. If your time on the internet is very limited then why not find a cafe / pub / hotel / camp site with free wifi and access the 'net for free?.

Unfortunately, after Satellite broadband - Mobile Broadband remains one of the most expensive means of internet communication, costing even more and offering far less than my first ever 512k connection back in 2001!.

Also be aware that the higher speed 3G and 3G+ services are also patchy in nature and are based on a mixture of luck and err... luck and more often than not that nice ickle dongle will fall back to basic 2G gprs access which is worse than 56k dial up. You'll probably find yourself fashioning antennas from old baked bean tins just to see that 'roaming GPRS' status turn to 3G+ so you can taste some of that 3.6mbs or 7.2mbs which you have been promised!.

In short, having tried 3 providers on various sites 400 miles apart, i've come to the conclusion that Mobile Broadband is crap. Yes you'll get a few singing its praises but they fall into 2 groups. The first group usually live in the middle of a big city, so close to an array of antennas that they glow in the dark. The second group, probably live in a cave a light year from civilisation and whose local exchange has got 4 people and a duck on it, so no hope of ADSL enablement. If they ever stumbled across a 2mb ADSL connecton they'd have multiple orgasms for a week, but in the meantime, for them, that flakey mobile broadband and baked bean tin antenna is the best advancement since blokes walked on that round moon thing in the Sky as they only have 56k to compare it against.

In the real world and feet firmly on the floor. If you are used to a high speed internet connection at home, then don't expect Mobile Broadband to even compare!. Yes, its okay for reading basic low res websites and checking non attachment emails and if you are okay to wait 30 seconds for each page load. But don't go doing silly things like uploading the contents of your camera SD card of photos, or watching utube or streaming media content as you'll find how little that 1gb is in real everyday terms - assuming you can EVEN get the speed to access them!.

slik0000

T-mobile do a PAYG for £2 per day £7 per week or £15 for a month. You choose what you need

Snakeeyes21

chris1973 wrote: »

we may see providers bringing out more usable 10 / 20gb allowances by about 2076
Unfortunately, after Satellite broadband - Mobile Broadband remains one of the most expensive means of internet communication, costing even more and offering far less than my first ever 512k connection back in 2001!.

Really? is it 2076 already? Have I some how lost 66 years?
I have 15gb from 3 for £10 a month, which is cheaper per gb than alot of traditional broadband providers, speeds are 2mb+, which is faster than alot of landline based broadband.

Aspiring_Writer

completely agree with chris1973. I have vodafone 3gb dongle, which is a K3565 BTW. its ok for me most of the time but this eve I was watching trigger happy tv on youtube for a while, boy does it eat your bandwidth!

Just depends what you go online for really, normal surfing and checking emails etc will be fine. Most of the time I get 3g but the signal is either v poor or poor and once or twice I have experienced GPRS As chris says, so slow you lose the will to live...

Donnie

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Would you care to expand...?

Yes, they are the only ones to include WiFi. The WiFi access is tied to the duration of your mobile broadband access.

Donnie

The MoneySaving way would be to buy the O2 modem for £9.99 and then if necessary individual SIMs from eBay.

chris1973

Really? is it 2076 already? Have I some how lost 66 years?
I have 15gb from 3 for £10 a month, which is cheaper per gb than alot of traditional broadband providers, speeds are 2mb+, which is faster than alot of landline based broadband

Wow, having a bad day? or did somebody steal all of the jam from out of your donut?

You know something?. I'm sooooo happy for you that i'm going to make a nice big cake and open a bottle of beer to celebrate and toast your luck and success. Will anybody join me in a toast to Snakeeyes21?.

Ladies and Gentlemen raise your glasses please.....

Let me guess. You are blessed with being one of these people, who can look out of their window and see street lights?. You have neighbours, yes?, Can walk to the nearest school?, have a post office?

If you can answer yes to any of the questions above, then I guess you live in or near to a town, which has a nearby transmitter or maybe even more than 1!. Many people don't, and at weekends i'm one of them, plus I travel around a lot so I can hope that I can offer some advise to others like me who are operating (or hope to operate) from rural locations, without the sarcastic crap from bored, petty self elected milk monitors like you.

In the last week alone I have been working away, stopped in 5 hotels in 5 different postcode areas, including several motorway service areas enroute at break / lunchtimes where the signal should be usable. On each occasion bar one, i've needed an external aerial on the dongle just to get a usable connection which wasn't 2G 'roaming' via 3's agreement with orange.

Care to post and share the locations where you have connected from in the last 5 days??, how about the last month?. As the dongle actually EVER left your house?? let alone travelled 100's of miles a week?

Having and sharing an opinion is great, and its what keeps the internet connected but don't get cute with the sarcastic houlier than thou replies which suggest that you know better than anybody else. No 1 person is greater than the entire community in general and my opinion here is just as valid as yours.