Free wireless internet and cheap 3G broadband article discussion

scooby32

I am looking at the vodaphone 3G £15 for 3gb 18 month contract. The £90 quidco cashback. Anyone found any better deals. I hope this allowance will be enough as I use outlook for bulk e mails but wont use every day only when travelling. I assume I can upgrade to 5GB if required. Any help or advice would be great . had looked at o2 my broadband and phone provider but speed not as good, even with the £7.50 off still more expensive unless anyone knows of a deal on this (my broadband is £10 per month so the free 12 months worksout at £7.50 off price)

S0litaire

Not sure if this is relevant but ...

Company called Exspansys is selling a Laptop PCMCIA 3G card (no sim) for £9.99 (Friday only)

You have to subscribe to their newsletter (but can cancel at anytime)
info and specs.
http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=173693&partner=uknews

Protopia

I am writing to suggest that all prospective 3 Mobile Broadband customers give 3 Mobile Broadband a miss.

Based on the recommended deal here, my partner recently signed up for an 18 month contract with 3 for up to 5GB per month. So far our personal experience has been simply terrible and we would absolutely recommend that anyone else thinking of using 3 go elsewhere.

To illustrate this, here is a summary of our experience so far (if you can't be bothered with this bit skip to the bottom for a summary):

We received the modem and plugged it in, and it seemed to install OK - but it wouldn't connect. 3 Technical Support turned out to be in India, strongly accented (and barely intelligable) and with absolutely no personal experience of the product. The script they called up on their screen was not technically accurate, and by the time I had followed its convoluted instructions over the phone, I knew more about the product than 3 Technical Support did. However, they made no progress diagnsing the cause, said my modem was faulty and connected me to the customer service team who could arrange a replacement - but unfortunately all I got was a recorded messages explaining they were closed and giving their opening hours which we were still within.

So I called back a second time, and went through exactly the same diagnostics again with another un-knowledgeable "technical support" person and another supervisor. This time they refused to allow me a replacement modem and insisted I sent the modem for repair, and when I said I wanted a replacement rather than a repair, she insisted against my explicit wishes to connect me with the cancellations department. Since I didn't want to cancel at the time, I rang off.

Next stop was their web site - and it started to become clear that the Huwai modem software was incompatible with a wide range of CD writing, Dell and web-cam software. I decided that some of this software I had installed wasn't really needed and uninstalled some of it in the hope of getting the modem to work. After several uninstalls modem still not working.

Next morning I tried to phone 3 in the UK to speak to a senior manager. The switchboard was polite but very well trained to deflect even persistent customers from being able to speak with a senior manager. They were apparently unable to connect you to someone by role, but having found some names on the Internet, I was still unable to contact any employee in the UK except the switchboard operator who could do nothing to help me.

In the end I took a look in Device Manager and found the modem would not install properly and I called 3 Technical Support again. This time I managed to speak to a supervisor who first advised me that their records indicated that I wanted to cancel and I had to explain that this was not true. Anyway, he was willing to call me back and when he did had some technical knowledge, and agreed that the modem was broken and would arrange a replacement. I heard nothing about arrangements for this, and phoned again the next day, this time speaking with a different supervisor who again refused a replacement and said I needed to send it off for repair so the drivers could be updated. When I said (admitedly rather forcefully but still politely) that I wanted a replacement for a DOA modem that had never worked rather than a repair he hung up on me.

Finally overnight I decided that if I didn't accept a repair, nothing was going to happen, so I phoned again and agreed a collection on Monday and return on Wednesday. When the modem didn;t arrive back on Wednesday, I phoned yet again and was told it would now be Thursday - when it did arrive along with a letter from the Director of Operations that the modem was not faulty and they made no repair.

So I tried it again, and it worked - with newer drivers on it. Or mostly worked - and only fully worked when I downloaded and installed a further update. That is, until I plugged in my webcam and then it stopped working and stayed not working until I uninstalled, rebooted, installed, updated and rebooted again.

So now it was working, but somewhat slowly. A broadband speed test showed speeds of between 120Kbps and 220Kbps about 1/20 the 3Mbps 3 was suggesting I might get - more dial-up speed than mobile broadband.

Summary

The Huwai modem drivers and software is very poorly written:
Brand new modem needed to be sent back for repair before it would work
Repair team said modem was working, but they still fixed it by installing new drivers
Even the new software needed an update
Eventually I got it working, but it is still incompatible with CD/DVD writers, Dell software and webcams
When it does connect, 3's broadband speed is not much better than dial-up
Technical and customer support is all from india, poorly trained, difficult to understand, and unwilling to actually listen to your complaint
Technical support people often have not used the equipment and have almost no technical knowledge
Customer service is uncaring, arrogant, rude and records untruths in your customer log
And if you want to escalate to someone in the UK you can't.

Do yourself a favour, and don't buy Mobile Broadband from 3.

S0litaire

Are you sure it's 220Kbps and not 220KBps? (there is a diffrence between Kilobits and KiloBytes) since 220KBps sounds right for a 2.8Mb 3G connection

What do get when you use:
http://www.speedtest.net/

Also the speed depends what area you are in. If it's a 3G or 3.5G area. the 3 website has a map of it's coverage.

tmancktelow

i have broadband at home but some of my friends are raving on about mobile broadband...are there any clear benefits? can mobile broadband fans pls tell me!

TheBearNecessities

Lots of people asking for basic feedback about mobile broadband so here goes.

The whole thing seems very hit and miss from the reviews i've read on this site and others.

I took the plunge and now have a mobile broadband contract with 3G and I am using one of their little "dongles".

It's nowhere near as fast as your more comman landline & moden type broadband, but it is useable for me. I can even download the odd song if i'm willing to wait 20 to 40 minutes.

many people on other threads are saying not to go with 3G as they have never had a service at all (the dongle didn't work) and they can't get out the contract.

But i can say it does work for me in the south side of glasgow anyway.

I would recommend if you want to be really sure you have a service

• get someone with a mobile phone (from the same company as the mobile broadband you want) to check their service in your home
• if you REALLY want to be sure you could always just buy a £50 pay as you go dongle and see if it works. if it doesn't the just sell it on e-bay, and try a different network.

hope this general info helps someone.

lindsey84_2

Hello,

I got a 3 dongle from PC world, on a "sign up to a contract, get a free laptop" deal a couple of months ago. I was told that signal is good in my postcode area, but I've had it a few months and it's been persistantly rubbish. I went back in this week to complain and got a new upgraded dongle but it's not helped. Do i have a leg to stand on if i want to cancel my contract?

Thanks!

msw1

The 3 network is well known for being rubbish mostly the 3 mobile phones which have very little network coverage.If you tell them you wish to cancel because you cant get a signal I don't think they will hold you to the contract, but make sure you state you cant get a signal as they will try to wriggle out of it and charge you otherwise

Stv67

I couldn't agree more with Protopia's comments about the poor customer service from 3 and the difficulties in setting up mobile broadband. It took me days and days to get the device to work, mostly because the instructions supplied (and on the website) were incorrect and incomplete. I persevered though and eventually got online - without much help from Tech Support, I have to say.

Having got it working I don't have many complaints about the access - where I use it (lucky for me) coverage is good and fast. I know that this is just luck of the draw though - it won't be this good for everybody but I guess that is the nature of internet access over 3G.

In terms of customer service this is appalling! If everything goes OK for you, then fine, but if you ever need to contact three by phone I hope you don't get the same treatment that I did.

Today, for example, I notice that they have quietly introduced a new charge for itemised paper bills. No notice - just upped the fees. When I called to ask about it I was told I could log onto their website and set up paper-free billing instead. BUT in order to do this I need to register and the password would be sent to my "mobile phone" by text message. As this is a broadband modem, not a mobile phone, it doesn't accept text messages. They couldn't help after that!

So, in summary - coverage is variable: it may be good or it may be bad, but customer service, in my experience, is always bad!

Surfer

Stv67 wrote: »

Today, for example, I notice that they have quietly introduced a new charge for itemised paper bills. No notice - just upped the fees. When I called to ask about it I was told I could log onto their website and set up paper-free billing instead. BUT in order to do this I need to register and the password would be sent to my "mobile phone" by text message. As this is a broadband modem, not a mobile phone, it doesn't accept text messages. They couldn't help after that!
quote]

I have got the same problem. Seems that you can't log into the account as you never get the text although the connection box has a text icon. With T-mobile I could send texts but they were an extra charge.