Mobile broadband recs

**NickFitz** · 29 August 2008, 02:41

Originally posted by cojak View Post

Evening chaps,

Along with my shiny new Asus my company is contemplating getting mobile broadband.

Do you have any recommendations for a particular brand (particularly for reliability and sensible usage policy)?

I wouldn't be downloading movies or anything, and probably will only be using it 2-3 days per week while I'm away from the office at the client site.

I'm a bit suspicious of 3's 10quid a month offer, but if anyone's using it...

3's gubbins works well for me other than on the train, when it tends to suck hard (if "suck hard" can be used as a metaphor for "not work").

The pricing structure is slightly more complex than £10/month, but if you have a look at their web site (if it's working) you should be able to weigh up the various aspects yourself. Still, as I'm drivelling: £10/1Gb/30 days is the baseline. If you don't use 1Gb in those 30 days you lose what's left. However if you did use it all you can top-up another £10 and, for that new injection of funds, a new 30 day period starts. You can pay more if you anticipate heavy data transfer (I can't remember exactly, but I think you can get 3Gb for about £20) but the 30 day limit still applies.

I've never managed to use up the 1Gb/30 day quota, but one important point: top up before you start using their network. You must explicitly assign credit on the account to be used for the purpose of data transfer. Otherwise, it's charged at some ludicrous sum.

Recently I forgot to do so before leaving home, and tried to do so on the train: however my feed reader and mail client had managed to connect briefly and when I was actually able to get through to 3's site for the purpose of assigning the existing £10 credit to the modem, I'd already spent something like 89p of it without actually doing anything useful. In the end I waited until I got to my hotel in London, where I could connect reliably - but I then had to add another £10 top-up to the PAYG account, then convert that to "data transfer", and now have some random sum just above £9 sitting on the account, which can't be used for anything

If you are mad enough to actually have a "we mobile companies love people who give us the keys to their bank account" account, rather than PAYG, then you might find that you sometimes don't realise or remember that you need to explicitly tell them that "this amount should be used for data transfer, now that the last amount's run out" - in which case you'll discover your mistake when your next bill comes through, and their shareholders will be as happy as if you'd watched an entire season of Doctor Who on the phone whilst "roaming" in Australia.

Or Austria.

Whatever, it'll cost a fortune. For that reason alone I'd recommend getting a PAYG deal rather than signing a contract. (They wouldn't, for exactly the same reason.)

Although I may be wrong about the non-PAYG bit, but I always assume that such companies will always do their best to screw you over. It's what I would expect of them.

**AlanR** · 29 August 2008, 06:43

Vodafone

Hi,

I use Vodafone, £15 a month for 3Gb. What you don't use you lose, go over your 3Gb and it is £15 per Gb. Not sure if it is pro-rata or you only pay for what use over the 3Gb. Plus you can have it through a Business Account.

Have used in in many places predominatley in the South of England, south wales but also Lancashire, never had any problems with it.

Hope that helps

Alan

**cojak** · 29 August 2008, 07:49

Thanks chaps!

I'm much happier considering brands that have been used in real-life...

**Spacecadet** · 29 August 2008, 08:55

I've got the 3 mobile broadband, works a treat

Interestingly, I did a side by side test with a fellow contractor who has the vodafone mobile broadband - we both have a huawei USB device, not the internal broadband that comes with some laptops

I got 350 kb/s
he got 65kb/s

The vodafone 3g coverage is not as good at the 3 network, so although for voice calls vodafone is better, for mobile broadband (at a decent speed) 3 is better.
http://three.co.uk/personal/coverage...e_coverage.omp
http://maps.vodafone.co.uk/coveragev...b/default.aspx

**cojak** · 29 August 2008, 08:59

Hmm... very interesting SC...

*stokes chin thoughtfully..*

Ta..

**Spacecadet** · 29 August 2008, 09:01

only problem i've found with the broadband is that i can't use my wireless mouse at the same time. It seems to interfere with the USB device and kills my speed

**AlanR** · 29 August 2008, 09:13

Originally posted by Spacecadet View Post

I've got the 3 mobile broadband, works a treat

Interestingly, I did a side by side test with a fellow contractor who has the vodafone mobile broadband - we both have a huawei USB device, not the internal broadband that comes with some laptops

I got 350 kb/s
he got 65kb/s

The vodafone 3g coverage is not as good at the 3 network, so although for voice calls vodafone is better, for mobile broadband (at a decent speed) 3 is better.
http://three.co.uk/personal/coverage...e_coverage.omp
http://maps.vodafone.co.uk/coveragev...b/default.aspx

Just tried a couple of online speed tests and they both gave similar results of 0.8 Mbps download and 0.2 Mbps upload. Perhaps a poor location for your fellow contractor. But with a lot of these things, you pays your money, you takes your chance.

Have a look here, this may help you.

Alan

**cojak** · 29 August 2008, 10:04

Thanks Alan.

**Spacecadet** · 29 August 2008, 11:19

Originally posted by AlanR View Post

Just tried a couple of online speed tests and they both gave similar results of 0.8 Mbps download and 0.2 Mbps upload. Perhaps a poor location for your fellow contractor. But with a lot of these things, you pays your money, you takes your chance.

Have a look here, this may help you.

Alan

we were in a UK city centre, excellent phone coverage
The reason for the test in the first place is because he was moaning about download speeds.

As i said before, the 3g coverage is what counts and 3 has better 3g coverage

Mobile broadband recs