Mobile broadband - wifi without line rental??

Richard_T_

I'm looking into mobile broadband to use in a static location for a community building with no phone line ( a landline would be expensive install+rental costs )
At the moment I'm thinking of getting a mifi device ( 3G) coupled with a Three mobile broadband sim with 12GB of data valid for 12 months.
The data usage will be low and used mostly for web browsing and the occasional bit of youtube
The Mifi device will be powered up and switched on all day, every day (24/7)

There is an excellent signal from Three and EE ( as a mast is only a few fields away - almost spitting distance, and there's another mast not far away with O2 and vodafone)

At the moment the only sim deal i can find that doesn't expire after 12 months is three 12GB data that lasts for 12 months.


any thoughts on this set up?
anything else cheaper with a long lasting data allowance - EE/O2/Vodafone all seem to expire after 30 days, I'm also aware of an EE mobile broadband deal, however my initial budget is just under £70, the Mifi devices sell for £35 unlocked on amazon, and the sim card with 12GB of data costs £30 from three, although 12GB doesn't sound much i'm not expecting any heavy usage.

again landline is not currently an option, and the mifi will be plugged in 24/7

thanks

kwikbreaks

Richard_T_ wrote: »

I'm looking into mobile broadband to use in a static location for a community building

Richard_T_ wrote: »

although 12GB doesn't sound much i'm not expecting any heavy usage.

A high percentage the people I see in the streets are constantly tippity tapping away on smartphones. You only need a few snapchatting or on youtube to eat that 12GB in very short order.

With 12GB you'll have to limit this to just a favoured few.

pathtofreedom

Have you looked at id mobile, they are on the 3 network. I just ordered a 25g mifi device with a month by month contract with quidco cashback, as I only need it for a month or two. They do other deals though which might work better.

When you say 12g do you mean a month, or for the whole year, as for a whole year, if it is for more than one person, and you watch anything on youtube, or all those auto play videos in adverts / facebook, they'd eat that up faster than a year I'd think. That's not including if they use iplayer, or podcasts or anything like that too.

Sam_J12

I think it is a fine idea provided you are not a heavy user. 12Gb is fine for web browsing, email and streaming a decent amount of music. If you stream more than a few hours of video you are likely to go over this though.

An alternative solution is to use a 4G smart phone as a home router on a standard mobile tariff. Three lets you have 12Gb of tethering data usage (i.e. usage by devices connected to the phone) and unlimited data for the actual phone for £20 per month (and 200 free minutes call time) on a 12m contract. This means you could download large files directly to your phone on the unlimited usage portion of the contract, and use the 12Gb tethering portion for usual webbrowing and email. I believe the only other data restriction is that peer-to-peer connections are severely restricted in speed betwen 3pm and midnight.

I am intending to do exactly this shortly on a 1 month rolling contract.