Free wireless internet and cheap 3G broadband article discussion

AndyB1

Regarding how three get money outta payg: when you say, buy a top-up voucher from a shop. you go to three's site & enter the number, which adds the 'top-up'.

You must then "convert your Top-up to a Mobile Broadband Add-on" or you get charged the silly high rate.

Soo, if having converted, there's 'top-up' credit left over, which isn't converted yet, I guess that's where they'd grab the money from for the over-limit usage.

As long as you convert all top-ups to "mobile broadband add-ons" there's no way they can charge you, they just cut the service.

ask3.three.co.uk/mbbdocs/payg,%20top-ups%20and%20add-ons/convert_topup_to_addon.htm
(this site won't allow me to use the full link)

why they imagine anybody would knowingly use a service costing £1/MB, is another matter, a money-making ruse, perhaps?.

asbokid

Stv67 wrote: »

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!

Been there done that!

It turns out that the USB broadband modem dongles that 'Three' supplies (the ZTE MF627 and the Huawei E156G) are clever little fellows.

Both of Three's dongles are supplied with software for your PC that is used to send and receive text messages.

Now here's where I went wrong.. I searched the packaging that the dongles were supplied in, but just couldn't find the CD containing that software...

And why couldn't I find it? Because I didn't RTFM as they say in the trade! The software is actually on the dongle itself! The dongle cleverly doubles up as a USB flash drive.

When I inserted the dongle into a USB port, the software including the sms client loaded automatically on the PC. And I could retrieve my password from the text message that was sent to me automatically by Three.

From then onwards, everything went like clockwork.

I've only played with Three for a few days, but so far, the service has far exceeded my expectations. The Three connection easily achieves a data transfer (down) rate of 1Mbps.

If there is any criticism it's a petty one (or two)..

Point 1...I followed some (bad) advice on some blog and put the Three USIM in my 2G phone in order to retrieve the Three password. It didn't work. Unsurprisingly, the Motorola V600 phone said the USIM was incompatible.

However, the phone did some how connect to the 2G service from O2 (with which Three has a network sharing arrangement). In doing so, the phone managed to get itself branded with annoying O2 logos and animations, even though I am actually on a Vodafone contract!

Point 2.. if you want to use the dongle in an eeePC or in any other Linux machine, there is no way of obtaining the authentication password, not without using a Windows box.. That is a shame because once you have obtained the logon password, by whatever means, both the dongle and the Three connection work really well in Linux (ubuntu jaunty)

Cloudane

To follow up on my earlier post, sure enough, 2 dongles turned up. So yes, it's per individual, not per household.

Unhban wrote: »

Another thing to watch with the 3 offer is that they supply a ZTE dongle, not the more popular Huawei.

The ZTE does not work with Linux (now that more and more are using Ubuntu which seems as good as Windows yet is free) unless you play around with files

Yeah, tell me about it Just spent a good few hours trying to get it going in Ubuntu Jaunty. Got the in the end, albeit only through wvdial - I've yet to get gnome-ppp or even 3's own dialler to work. And that's only after installing all kinds of HAL and UDev scripts to get it to switch from "virtual CD mode" to "modem mode". Not for the feint hearted.

BTW the authentication password is 'three', same as the username. Edit - or do you mean the three.co.uk account+password.... yeah, I got around that by putting the SIM in an old 3 phone I had and receiving the text message that way. You ought to be able to get it to work by using 3's included tarball though.

Small rant, what I didn't realise is that they seemingly don't do the usual roaming onto Orange (or previously O2) with this particular SIM. 3's own coverage is patchy at best outside of the major cities, but I would've been happy enough with a GPRS or EDGE fallback... no such luck...

koru

I tried this offer, so can now give some feedback.

The dongle arrived quite quickly. As another recent post has said, the software drivers are now on the dongle itself, so you don't need to muck around with CDs. You just insert the SIM in the dongle then insert the dongle in a USB port, click on the icon to install the software. They include software for Macs and Linux. Can't vouch for Linux, but the Mac drivers seem to work fine, though my system did crash the first time I was using it.

Reception is very poor at my house. The Three website reception map suggests I should get good HSDPA reception. In fact, I get weak UMTS reception. If I had paid a lot for the dongle I would be wanting a refund.

Strangely, it works even though I have not loaded any airtime. I assumed that if I tried to access google or amazon it would block me and tell me I need to top up. However, both sites loaded (slowly). Three webpages have apparently already used 1.4MB, so at £1 per MB this would cost £2 for 3 pages!

Perhaps 3 will try to deduct this from any top up that I do add. They will have to wait a long time, as I am only going to use this as backup should my landline ADSL fail.

Cloudane

Yep another vouch for the Mac version. It's very rare that anything comes with official drivers for all 3 of the major platforms (anything but Windows in fact) and rarer still that they manage to stick to the "Mac Way" - a mono (albeit wide) icon in the notification area that goes away when you're not using it, and everything kept neat and tidy. None of the "Windowsification" that I've seen in drivers for some other hardware.

Whoever wrote the drivers knew what they were doing, which is surprising for 3, since they don't know what they're doing with anything else! I put £10 credit on without thinking, but think it would've worked without it for me too, as their metering system doesn't seem to work. It still says I've used nothing after 2 days.

If you were to ask them what's going on, the scripted gentleman/lady on the other side of the world will have no idea and give you some random answer like "clean your sim card" or "it can take up to x days" to get you off the line, so I would say just shrug it off and enjoy the free usage. It's pre-pay, so I don't think there's anything they can do after the fact. Glad not to be on a contract though, with all the bum/elbow misidentifications they have there!

niaud

I'm not sure if this is in the right place, so I'm sorry if it isn't!

I do not have a landline at home, I just use my mobile (O2 contract).

I'm looking for broadband at home without installing a landline but mobile reception with all providers is very limited, one or two bars at best (unless I walk up the hill!). What are my options?

Many thanks guys!

web_ferret

niaud wrote: »

I'm not sure if this is in the right place, so I'm sorry if it isn't!

I do not have a landline at home, I just use my mobile (O2 contract).

I'm looking for broadband at home without installing a landline but mobile reception with all providers is very limited, one or two bars at best (unless I walk up the hill!). What are my options?

Many thanks guys!

Get a 5m USB extension lead and put your modem as high as you can or out of an upstairs window or in the loft etc - Where ever gives you a better reception.
Some of the USB modems have sockets for external ariels.

lisa26_2

Well as you guys have helped me out so much with my Sky+ question I thought I'd ask another lol!

I want to get internet on a dongle when I move into my new house. I'm not sure if to go pay as you go or pay monthly and who to go with? I tend to have my laptop on with the internet connected most of the evening but I don't download or anything...nostly chtting to mates on facebook :-)

ANy suggestions at what I should be looking at/for?

Ta muchly!!

whitehat

Via Quidco:

Get £44.67 cashback on the PAYG Mobile Broadband Dongle (£29.35), when you top up £15. Effectively a free dongle and one month's free internet usage

allean01

Has anyone tried using Skype - complete with camera - using a mobile broadband connection?

My parents don't have/need broadband, but we would like to talkto/see relatives in Canada.