Samba Mobile Broadband - Is it Really Free?

Skellers

I posted on the Samba community forums when I received my SIM that the service wasn't working for me (Micro SIM on iPad). I have notched up about 190MB of data credit by watching ads. Samba were initially helpful and responded to my messages, said they contacted Three on my behalf and even sent me a different SIM. The problem though, is that the service has never worked for me and still doesn't. The data usage in "my account" says I have used negligible amounts of data 0.01MB every now and then, but the service has yet to connect me to/display any site. My browser continually says "server not responding". I have tried resetting network settings, even completely erased my iPad and set it up again as new. I have taken it to a completely different region to see if I can connect there, but no. I have tried deactivating/reactivating within my account, but still nothing. I have tried the SIM in 4 different iOS devices - still no connection. Today, I contacted Three - they said all masts in my region were working as they should. I told them this was a Samba account and they asked for my allocated data number, details, etc and they checked for me - they said they could find no account with those details and suggested I contact Samba to find out what is going on. This is where my problem lies - I have been emailing Samba over the last few weeks and they have stopped responding to my messages. I don't know if they have had enough of me or have given up on trying to sort out my connection, but it is incredibly frustrating. I see lots of other people have used the service without incident, so what is going on in my case? Very disappointed indeed.

DrPaul

Looks like Samba have signed up a load of new advertisers, so here's another update to the "cheat sheet" (and, yes, you can just mute the volume on the ad player and still get the credit for watching)


20 sec ads

Hugo Boss


30 sec ads

Radox
Rice Krispies
Will Ferrell movie trailer
Dior
Adidas
Bacardi
Skechers
Domino's Pizza
Aptamil
Ladbrokes
Walkers
Stoli
The Guardian (but one is also 2:39)
Freesat
Governor
Mattel
Strongbow


40 sec ads

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


50 sec ads

Unicef
Prudential


1 min ads

Nike
Sprite
P&G
Samsung Galaxy SIII
Audi
Kopparberg
Visit Essex
Communities and local government
Lynx
Shell (but one is also 3:22)
O2
Sheba
Sky Sports
Cathedral City
Sainsbury's
Total
Meningitis
Levi's
RMHC (just a cartoon as logo)
Direct Line
Thetrainline.com
Designers at Debenhams


1 min 30 sec ads

Hovis
Louis Vuitton
NSPCC
Carlsberg
Greenpeace
John Lewis
DFS
Darksiders II
Toyota
Example
VW
Intel
Guiness
FIFA 13


1 min 50 sec ads

Refuge for women
ottobock (also a 2:52)
esure
Rekorderlig Cider


2 min + ads

Converse (2:10)
OwnFone(2:11)
Call of Duty Black Ops II (2:16)
Tourism Ireland (2:19)
The Guardian (2:39)
Samsung Galaxy Note (2:44)
Shell (3:22)
Volvo (3:22)
Samsung (3:39)
Start Rite (4:14)

chanz4

does credit expire?

verandi

Bealer wrote: »

Did you do anything to make it work? I received the SIM now, but no connection. It just says that "no APN configured". I tried to enter the Three APN settings, but still no luck.

Perhaps I need to buy a dongle.

I didnt have to do anything on the phone, just put in the sim and it worked.


My phone did try telling me a new sim had been used and should I change settings but I said no (think it was meaning the wallpaper etc).

Sorry I cant be of any more help.

Bealer

verandi wrote: »

I didnt have to do anything on the phone, just put in the sim and it worked.


My phone did try telling me a new sim had been used and should I change settings but I said no (think it was meaning the wallpaper etc).

Sorry I cant be of any more help.

Thanks anyway. In the end, I bought a dongle from Ebay and that works great.

fuzzgun19

Nookster wrote: »

For boosting your credit. See comment 55 for the original post, how I do it below.

If you've used up your ads allocation;

Logout and go to the earn credits page, open a bunch of ads in tabs, (1 extra, Lynx and Aptamil don't need additional clicks as they auto play).

When they've all played, pick one (last one opened if easiest?), and click on the login prompt, you will be credited for all of the tabs you opened. You only need to login once one one of the tabs, I've experimented with 20 tabs running the three autoplay ads above, takes about a minute to boost the MB's at the moment, get it while you can!

Is this way of earning credit still working?

I've done it lots of times today, but the credit seems to be creeping..

fuzzgun19

I think they have fixed that 'glitch', I watched 5 x ads in 5 tabs this morning, then logged in and the credit earned only showed as 3.50 (which I believe is for 1 ad).

Nookster

Yeah, sorry for not replying. I noticed this the other day. Checking back here to see if it was just me or not. Glad I built up 3GB+ before they closed that loophole, can still make at least one free 3.5MB so not all bad I guess. :cool:

Only thing I've noticed is that I hardly get any ads nowadays, maximum three or four, and those horrible lucky dip buttons.

When I log out there's still loads of ads available so I wonder if the system detects your amount accrued and throttles you back for a bit? Maybe their way of load balancing all the extra credit I've been nabbing?

Still got 2.4GB spare, and using Opera in turbo mode for tiny data usage, so I've got nothing to worry about for now anyway.

demeter

I got my sim early in August. I earned 1.5Gb credit without resorting to any special tricks by the end of the month while I still had credit on another sim. Since then the ads have dried up. Maybe the number offered depends on what you have on your account or how long you have had the sim. Nowadays I can usually get credit for about 6 ads a day and they become available over the day and not all at once. Often ads will play but then say that they have expired. Sometimes it's only 2 ads a day although it has picked up today.

I use my sim in a Huawei MiFi (about £90 on Amazon) so I can connect up to 5 devices (ipods, ipads, netbooks, laptops, tablets) at a time with wifi (ideal when travelling with the family). I have an iPad with a 3G modem which I don't use now. I could have saved the extra £100 but it is there if I ever need it and it's more convenient than the MiFi. The MiFi is ideal for Android tablets which just have wifi.

The tips I have are:
- Viewing ads works best for me on Safari on my Windows desktop. I installed Safari just for this. I prefer surfing with Firefox and ad-blocking/security filters but these seem to stop the ads from playing.
- If you set the Sambamobile Ads page as your homepage on Safari, stay signed in, then have Safari start up automatically when you turn on your PC, it will remind you to view ads every time you turn your computer on (don't know how to do this on non-windows computers but it may be possible).
- The cash topups seem expensive as for £6.30 you can get 1gb for 1 month, or £12.05 3Gb for 3 months (today's prices). At £3.50 for 250mb or £5 for 500mb topups are not extortionate and possibly reasonable value if you don't need more data in a month.
- The best feature for me is that the credit earned by viewing ads is not supposed to expire so this makes it ideal as a backup when I'm using another fixed term sim.

chanz4

3 do a 3gb 3 month sim only of p&g on amazon for £12