OT: Mobile broadband dongles
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
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
Any suggestions where to buy? Or just any Carphone Warehouse or similar?
G
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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G
Without a 3G signal the dongle will be virtually unusable, it'll be barely acceptable for email but awful for surfing the web.
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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.
Nic
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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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8165 posts
20 years
London
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