PAYG Dongle

peggy_smith

Hi there,
I've been reading posts and I know the information I need is already out there but, I'm struggling to understand it.
My problem is that I've just bought a cheap notepad and need a dongle for it so I can take it round to my disabled mother-in-law's and Skype the family in Australia once or twice a month. Other than that, it would only get occasional use for checking weather & maps when we're camping.
I can only get 3 or T-mobile coverage locally and fancy the really cheap T-mobile PAYG. My question is:
On a £2.00 day top up, could we Skype for half-an-hour or would we get cut off?

Inner_Zone

T-Mobile FAQs

Question

Can I use Skype?


Answer To use Skype or other VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) services, you need to be on a price plan that supports Internet Calling such as Mobile Broadband Extra or web'n'walk Max.

taylor11_2

Hi Peggy

My suggestion would be to use Three and if you can, buy the premium dongle as you will have faster download speeds which will boost the video quality on Skype. It's £2.99 per day for 500MB with Three or £10 per month for 1GB.

Anyone would think that I work for Three with the amount of promoting I am doing today! I used to work in the mobile industry and Three used to be the underdog, however, I think that they are finally getting their act together.

Cheers
taylor11

Buzby

I agree ThreeUK is by far the better option, but only if you have a good enough signal to start with. Bear in mind, Skype over mobile suffers delays and can be frustrating, depending on the traffic running through the mobile base station at the time.

Mark_In_Hampshire

Not sure how much data £2 buys you, but VOIP doesn't use much bandwidth when it's calls only (no video)

We use Sipgate (and have used Skype) with Three and it works very well.

Trouble is it's very location specific. You need to look at the coverage where you're going to be using it.

I tend to always go for quite remote campsites and I have yet to find one which does have decent 3G connectivity - so I never bother taking the laptop (battery only lasts a few hours anyway) though I can pick up stuff like weather on my mobile when it does eventually latch to and grab some 3G data even if it's when we've gone to the shops and back.