Best way to get internet access away from home.

Rubidium87

Home broadband is through Zen Internet who I'd recommend - I've been with them for 4-5 years - their support and service is very good but they aren't the cheapest. I pay £21.27pcm for Zen active BB, £16pcm for phone and generally only pay a few pence for calls not covered in the allowed minutes/free call/zero charge numbers. A problem that keeps cropping up several times a year is the need for internet when I'm away from home. I don't have a smartphone or a phone contract basically because they are so expensive and I work from home (apart from these times when I'm away when I'm on holiday but the fact is I still need to attend to things and need an internet connection) - I have a poxy £50 Sony Android smartphone on PAYG which I only ever use when I'm away from home but I can't sit there connected working on such a small screen at PAYG rates and I don't want to take out a £30-40pcm contract just for the 5-6 weeks of the year I'm away from home.

I asked Zen and they said I could buy a dongle £45 and pay for a month of access - I think that was about £35 - not an ideal solution when most if those 5-6 weeks are single weeks in different months. I then thought I could switch my home BB to BT and use their wifi hotspots but I'm really not keen to deal with BT - my experiences have all been bad - Zen also provide my home phone services. What's the best way to solve this? It might be complicated by the fact that when I'm away I won't be the only one in the family wanting internet access - I know I can turn a smartphone into a hotspot (haven't tried on my Sony Android - I expect it's possible (hopefully without rooting the device) - sometimes I'm staying in a YHA with no wifi or a place rented for a week but booked by other people (most who have smartphones and contracts) - I can't always be in a coffee house with free wifi.

onomatopoeia99

As you have a smartphone, can't you get a SIM from someone like giff gaff with data on it? As explained to me by someone that uses them, you can buy a month of use, non-recurring.

I have a contract as that suits my needs, so haven't tried it myself.

benjus

You know you can turn your phone into a hotspot - so why don't you try it?

Different providers and plans have different options regarding tethering. I'm with Three on their unlimited data package - the unlimited data is only for the phone, but I do get 2GB (or 4GB, can't remember) of data for tethering per month.

Typically if you pay for a specific amount of data they don't usually care if you use if on the phone or via tethering - it's the unlimited packages where they are more cautious. Most PAYG plans have options to buy a specific amount of data. For example, I'm considering switching networks and testing Vodafone coverage at the moment - I paid £5 for 500MB of data to test with. They may try to auto-renew them though, so remember to cancel if you don't want them regularly.

Rubidium87

It seemed expensive - Tesco PAYG data bundle is £20 for 8GB - my typical usage is 50GB/month i.e. 50/4.3 weeks per month = 11.6GB per week - I was just wondering if there was an alternative to going to BT to use their wi-fi spots.

After the 20GB is used they would charge 10p/MB unless I topped up with another data bundle.

cookie365

Forget the idea of getting 50GB a month on 3G or 4G for a reasonable price.

Are you likely to be staying in fixed places when you're away from home? If so, I'd suggest reaching an understanding with a neighbour - pay their internet bill for the month in return for connecting to their guest wifi network.