Samba Mobile Broadband - Is it Really Free?

woody2234

Is it any good for someone that watches youtube and bbc player at say 500 mb a day or 7 gb a month

DrPaul

portlandstone wrote: »

got the sim and you have got to ask yourself, is it really worth it? You get 3.5Mb for watching a 2 minute ad. So it will take you 10 hours of ads to get 1Gb of data. 1GB costs about £7 or so on PAYG, so the big question is 'do you value your leisure time at 70p per hour?!!!

I recommend to just buy a preloaded sim off Amazon for about £70 for 12 months of 1GB a month.

Just fire off the ad in a tab in Chrome, then go back to whatever you were doing.

Then just switch back to that tab whenever you feel like it and fire off another ad, then look away - simples!

I just need to be connected on the few occasions I'm away, such as a visit to my parents who don't do the internet, so it's only email and web browsing that I really need. IMHO you've got to be mad to watch videos over 3G.

DrPaul

prowla wrote: »

So, in response to the thread topic.

NO - it is not free.

You have to buy a SIM, and possibly a dongle.

(Also, if it's over the 3 network, then that's not good - I have found the paid 3 service pretty much unusable, so it's unlikely that a free one would work to an acceptable level.)

Well, near as dammit, and certainly free to use - complaining about a SIM for a couple of quid is pushing the money-saving ethos methinks;)

As for 3, I thought that was a plus point - surely independent ratings put them at or near the top of the tree for mobile broadband?

Was it just that you had a naff signal at your location(s) or were there wider issues?

DrPaul

Inigo_Montoya wrote: »

I ordered the SIM & watched a handful of ads - the battery is topping up fine using firefox & windows 7

I 'watched' a couple of ads at the same time & it seems to credit you for both even though clearly you cannot really 'watch' more than one at a time

Just wondering what would happen if you tried to watch a lot at the same time ? - has anybody tried this ? - would this get you into trouble with Samba ? (eg account suspension for example)

Interesting question. The Chrome "app" is just, I think, a button to launch the ad page and give you a quick readout of your credit.

The ads have to play on an iPad, so they can't use Flash - I'm sure I've used other viewers that "know" if you've switched off the sound, or set the volume to zero, or switched away to another window. Haven't checked for sure whether ads are played using Flash on Chrome, but you can always disable it or use FlashBlock.

So, given the ads play in a simple web page, the process is what is known as "stateless" - a web server serves the page it is asked for and has no knowledge whatsoever of what went before. They can use cookies to implement "sessions", which in theory would let them detect that you are watching multiple ads in multiple Chrome or Firefox tabs - but if you used Chrome and Firefox at the same time their system could see you as different users.

Again, if they coded their login stuff correctly they should be able to stop multiple logins - but if someone has managed to login simultaneously from different machines (think I saw that somewhere) then it looks like their code is a bit lacking in that respect. (Hooray!)

So, given that the earned credit never expires, give thanks that their code is a little "dumb" in places and "make hay while the sun shines" - build up that credit while you can do it easily!

Skellers

When I first saw Samba (on the MSE email), I thought it was a great idea and signed up. I watched a ton of ads to top up the credit. On receiving the SIM, I put it into my iPad, saw a full 3G signal, but nothing would connect. I tried resetting network settings, restarting the iPad, checking the APN settings were correct - anything you can think of, I tried it. My O2 SIM works on it without issue. I have been in contact with Samba support by email on an almost daily basis. They have raised the issue with Three who say there was a problem with a mast in my area, but that I have been able to connect. That, I can tell you, is absolute rubbish - it has yet to establish any sort of connection whatsoever. I keep getting emails from them saying they can see that I can now use the connection. Whatever they can see is anyone's guess, because it doesn't work. It's a real shame, because I was quite keen on this idea.

DrPaul

DrPaul wrote: »

Interesting question. The Chrome "app" is just, I think, a button to launch the ad page and give you a quick readout of your credit.

The ads have to play on an iPad, so they can't use Flash - I'm sure I've used other viewers that "know" if you've switched off the sound, or set the volume to zero, or switched away to another window. Haven't checked for sure whether ads are played using Flash on Chrome, but you can always disable it or use FlashBlock.

So, given the ads play in a simple web page, the process is what is known as "stateless" - a web server serves the page it is asked for and has no knowledge whatsoever of what went before. They can use cookies to implement "sessions", which in theory would let them detect that you are watching multiple ads in multiple Chrome or Firefox tabs - but if you used Chrome and Firefox at the same time their system could see you as different users.

Again, if they coded their login stuff correctly they should be able to stop multiple logins - but if someone has managed to login simultaneously from different machines (think I saw that somewhere) then it looks like their code is a bit lacking in that respect. (Hooray!)

So, given that the earned credit never expires, give thanks that their code is a little "dumb" in places and "make hay while the sun shines" - build up that credit while you can do it easily!

Doh!

Of course, their business model is based on telling their clients how many ads they served to your good selves, so this works in their favour - in the short term anyway.

DrPaul

Assuming that most people just want to rack up their credit, note that adverts vary from 30 secs in length up to 2 mins plus but they each get you 3.5Mb - that's a no-brainer then!

Here's a "crib sheet", will update it as and when...

30 sec ads

Radox
Rice Krispies
Will Ferrell movie trailer
Dior
Adidas
Bacardi
Skechers
Domino's Pizza


40 sec ads

BT
Gu
United Nations "I Was Here"
Telegraph
Nationwide
Dulux


50 sec ads

Unicef


1 min ads

Nike
Sprite
P&G
Samsung Galaxy SIII
Audi
Kopparberg


1 min 30 sec ads

Hovis
Louis Vuitton
NSPCC
Carlsberg
Greenpeace


1 min 50 sec ads

Refuge for women


2 min + ads

Tourism Ireland (2:19)
Samsung (3:39)
Start Rite (4:14)

Former_MSE_Becca

DrPaul wrote: »

Here's a "crib sheet", will update it as and when...

Thanks for this DrPaul - really helpful :T

MSE Becca

fuzzgun19

Just signed up for this.

How much data would I use, say if I was on the internet for 3 hours, how many MB would that be?

Nookster

Totally depends on where you go and what you do, browsing this webpage wouldn't use much, but watching Top Gear on BBC iPlayer in HD would last about 5 seconds with 3.5MB that one ad gives you.

If you want to be frugal with data, have a look at Opera and Opera Mini for browsing, it takes all the web pages you view and compresses them down before sending you the data, I get 90% data savings with turbo mode on Opera mini on my iPhone. I haven't tried it yet, but I plan on using Opera exclusively on my Netbook when using the Dongle, hopefully I'll be able to view Gigs worth of pages with just Megs of data like I do on my phone.