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OT: Mobile broadband dongles

George Lazarette
Posted 22/11/2009 - 22:20 Link
I shall shortly be returning to England, and plan to be moving around a lot. Hence the need for a broadband dongle.

Anyone have any advice or suggestions? My peregrinations are likely to take me around the Thames to Oxford and beyond, and also Berkshire and Wiltshire.

Thanks

G
Keywords: Charming, polite, and generally agreeable.
CoDa
Posted 22/11/2009 - 22:30 Link
Hi George,
Funny this post happening today, I have just purchased today a T-Mobile broadband dongle. This was recommended as it is unlimited monthly usage, i.e. Orange is 3Gb, Vodafone is 1Gb. Both for approximately the same price £15.00 per month but T-Mobile is not a contract.

It could be worth looking as to whether T-Mobile covers the area that you will be in.

Colin
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Anvh
Posted 22/11/2009 - 22:44 Link
Sometimes you can use your mobile phone as dongle, maybe that's cheaper then only a dongle?
Stefan
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Edited by Anvh: 22/11/2009 - 22:44
johnriley
Posted 22/11/2009 - 22:44 Link
My experience with T Mobile was that coverage was poor in England but excellent is some areas of North Wales.

Orange has a far better coverage IMHO, and my 3GB dongle gives me internet almost everywhere.

The internet speed depends upon the type of netwoek in an area. In Scotland the GPRS is slow but it is just tolerable.

In the cities UTMS is very fast and very acceptable at around 1 - 2 Mb/sec
Best regards, John
George Lazarette
Posted 22/11/2009 - 23:17 Link
Thank you.

Any suggestions where to buy? Or just any Carphone Warehouse or similar?

G
Keywords: Charming, polite, and generally agreeable.
johnriley
Posted 22/11/2009 - 23:27 Link
The Orange shop is where I got mine. The deal was £15 per month and the dongle was free.
Best regards, John
ChrisA
Posted 22/11/2009 - 23:57 Link
I bought a Vodafone one. £40 for the doohickey, and that includes the first 1Gb of data. £15 per Gb top-up thereafter. I'm down to about £7 remaining on the initial one after several months of occasional use.

The only other PAYG one (T-mobile IIRC) was £2 on any day you use it at all, and then unlimited on that day.

What attracted me to the Vodaphone one was that there's no expiry of the data transfer you buy. This means that you don't end up wasting £2 on the days you try and log on, and discover that the connection is rubbish, but you've paid your £2 because you used three bytes getting connected at an unusable speed.

My experience so far is that 3G+ (the fastest) is very rare, 3G (slower) is more common, and on the train, it often drops out completely through the tunnels, or almost as bad, degrades to GPRS which is slowwwwwwww, and makes you wish there was an option to switch off forum images.

I bought mine in a Vodafone shop, but you can get them online too.

Remember to switch off Windows' auto-updates when you're on the road. Else you unusually get a fantastic connection, and your data transfer is all gone on a few security updates you didn't need quite that urgently.
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George Lazarette
Posted 23/11/2009 - 00:19 Link
Good points, Chris, thank you.

G
Keywords: Charming, polite, and generally agreeable.
thoughton
Posted 23/11/2009 - 11:12 Link
Definitely check coverage before you sign up with anyone though. I believe most of the providers have maps on their websites showing what areas get 3G signals. I'm sure Orange and O2 do, and I think T-Mobile do as well.

Without a 3G signal the dongle will be virtually unusable, it'll be barely acceptable for email but awful for surfing the web.
Tim
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Edited by thoughton: 23/11/2009 - 11:14
Posted 23/11/2009 - 11:21 Link
I've tried both T-Mobile and O2, and found coverage to be poor in the East Midlands, and in Cornwall. However 3 (three.co.uk) has mostly been excellent for me in the E Mids (haven't tried it elsewhere). Their PAYG tariff suits me as well - you get 1GB of transfer over 30 days for £10.
Martin Shilliday
Posted 23/11/2009 - 12:01 Link
I would have to say that for a PAYG deal, the Vodafone offering with the unlimited expiry is better.
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Unlocker
Posted 23/11/2009 - 14:01 Link
Martin Shilliday wrote:
I would have to say that for a PAYG deal, the Vodafone offering with the unlimited expiry is better.

Same here, gonna pick one up just to have lying in the laptop bag.

For the price (seen em at £34.99) this is stupidly low priced and no expiry on the top ups is fantastic. Used to use one on the markets all the time several years ago (had the first ever 3g card!) and the Vodafone coverage was always good for me, but as always YMMV.
alfiemooon
Posted 23/11/2009 - 17:23 Link
FWIW,3 have a bad reputation to get over and,although it`s double encoded (O2 and BT encryption and the Police encryption),as far as I`m aware O2 are the SP`s for the Police so,as there are more O2 masts covering the UK.

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dougf8
Posted 23/11/2009 - 17:43 Link
Bought an O2 one while on a course in Leeds. £15 half price deal from CarphoneW. It was £2 a day (500MB), £7.50 a week (1GB) and £15 30 days (3GB). If you used up the access data volume then you bought more. Simple and easy. Reception was rubbish in Leeds, rubbish in Cheshire and if its like my work phone it will be rubbish in Cornwall. I liked the idea of just buying a day a week when I needed it or a week if needed.

When you do get a 3G signal it is good and works like a treat.

I would go with Orange apart from their non-payg system that penalizes you over your quota though they now have capped this at £40 a month, you sign up for £5 a month and go over quota and they do you over. When Orange get a proper PAYG system and stop charging £30 for a dongle I'll get one.

There are coverage checkers on the various sites Orange seemed to have the best UK coverage.

PCWorld of all places had deals for all the dongles at the checkout last time I looked, all about the £20 mark. I also saw a £20 deal for O2 dongle at a Morrisons petrol station.

Doug
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Edited by dougf8: 23/11/2009 - 17:47
dougf8
Posted 24/11/2009 - 20:19 Link
Dongle update: My broadband router died last night after 5 years constantly on (15W what's my carbon foot print? groan). Anyway I rushed out today and got an Orange 30day contract 3GB £15 per 30 days rolling. Seems to work fine and the dongle price has been dropped to £15. I'm using it now until new broadband router arrives.
Lurking is shirking.!

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