Reply to: Best 3G dongle?

[Fred Bloggs]

Techincally yes, you can pick up routers (including some of the Draytek Vigor range) that provide shared Internet connectivity via a 3G modem. A mate of mine signed up to Three at the weekend and was offered a 3G compatible wireless hub for £30.

Thanks for that. I'm parking the idea for now.

[voodooflux]

£15 for 15Gb a month looks good with 3. Can you run a home network through this?

Techincally yes, you can pick up routers (including some of the Draytek Vigor range) that provide shared Internet connectivity via a 3G modem. A mate of mine signed up to Three at the weekend and was offered a 3G compatible wireless hub for £30.

[voodooflux]

I am with Three. They do 15GB for £15. My friends contrct had expired and after saying he was going to cancel he now gets the 15GB for just £5 p/m

Might have to give that a go myself - my original 18 month contract is coming up for renewal. Does your friend also have a mobile phone with Three?

[Fred Bloggs]

Hmmm, thanks all. I will stick with my wet string 512kb ADSL connection for now then. I can't take the risk of 3G not working reliably. I had a world of pain getting a 512kb ADSL set up reliable. Cheers for the insight.

[NickFitz]

I have one of 3's dongle thingies and the quality of service is variable to a ludicrous degree. I sometimes have to disconnect and reconnect several times before I can finally get a consistent service.

One tip I found is to ignore their instructions to use "3internet" as the APN and to use "three.co.uk" instead. It has been suggested that they apply throttling to the first, which is intended for their dongles, but not to the second, which is intended for actual phones on their network. I don't know if this is in fact the case, but I do know that since I reconfigured mine it's been considerably better, though far from consistently reliable.

When it works, it works well. The important word is "when"

(Oh, and it will randomly disconnect from time to time for no obvious reason.)

[TheRefactornator]

Yes that's the topology; for the internet connection to be shared and usable by other devices, the PC with the USB modem attached needs to be switched on and have ICS configured. It's probably worth a try if it's possible to get hold of one of those 3G thingies on try out and return basis.

I'm guessing there will be some overhead in a system like this where some of the downstream bandwidth is lost so it might negatively affect the theoretical max network speed and from what I've read you need a HSDPA mast on the roof of your house to get close to it anyway.

[Fred Bloggs]

Theoretically yes with M$ ICS http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...b14771033.mspx but I must admit I've never had the displeasure to have to come anywhere near this pain. And so far as a PS3 working with ICS..well I'd have to try it and prove it for myself to be completely happy that it does work problem free..if it works at all that is.

Thanks. So that's like a peer to peer network in my home with the 3G internet connected PC acting like a gateway to the internet? I did that once with a laptop connected to the internet via a USB modem connected desktop PC using ICS.

[TheRefactornator]

Can you run a home network through this?

Theoretically yes with M$ ICS http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...b14771033.mspx but I must admit I've never had the displeasure to have to come anywhere near this pain. And so far as a PS3 working with ICS..well I'd have to try it and prove it for myself to be completely happy that it does work problem free..if it works at all that is.

[Fred Bloggs]

£15 for 15Gb a month looks good with 3. Can you run a home network through this? I have several PC's and a PS3 networked and typically use about 12 to 14Gb a month but my connection is only 512kb ADSL.

[MrMark]

More useful links on free wireless internet

moneysaving expert link

[MrMark]

If you have BT "Total Broadband" and allow them to install a wi-fi router at home, you can then use wireless anywhere in the world free (so long as it's within range of another member)

http://www.btfon.com/support/faqs

I suppose the one drawback with this would be

When you log on to BT FON while you are out and about you will get up to 512kbp

I'm not on this, but would join like a shot if my next contract (if it ever materialises) is away from home, either UK or Europe. Use the broadband at home for any large file transfers or streaming, wi-fi for email and general browsing.

[Aaron]

I am with Three. They do 15GB for £15. My friends contrct had expired and after saying he was going to cancel he now gets the 15GB for just £5 p/m

[Moscow Mule]

I haven't roamed much looking for WIFI hot spots, but aren't they common enough now that you could get away without using 3G, especially near e.g. a city library?

Only if you want to work in a train station. There are no public wifi spots near my desk which is a shame.

[London75]

I got a 3 contract with a free netbook after trying a vodafone dongle. It's briliant, we wanted a netbook anyway but it meant the LTD pays for broadband and we get a free netbook (ahem I mean, what netbook?).

Voda was poo unless you were next to a mast, yes it has theoretical top speed in the UK but in reality in both the outskirts of Manchester and inner city Glasgow where I need it, no signal frequently or sometimes GPRS, never got 3G.

Three on the other hand has been fantastic to the point where I can work on the train (a pendolino swishy fast one too) for about 2/3 of the journey.

It's stuck at around 2mbs but for the coverage that's great.

[TimberWolf]

I haven't roamed much looking for WIFI hot spots, but aren't they common enough now that you could get away without using 3G, especially near e.g. a city library?