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Cellular Phone Forum / Country Specific / UK Group / December 2007Cheapest and best mobile broadband
While passing a "3" shop today, I saw a big advert in the window offering mobile broadband (1Gb for £10 per month, 3Gb for £15 per month). The idea appeals to me when I go to various parts of the country but there are negatives. Firstly, you have to take out a 2-year contract and I don't know what happens if you go over your agreed limit. Three started this service and no doubt other providers will follow suit. Perhaps the good people on this newsgroup could point me to what's available and if there is any comparison data anywhere like in one of the Mobile Phone mags?  SignatureAlasdair. > While passing a "3" shop today, I saw a big advert in the window > offering mobile broadband (1Gb for £10 per month, 3Gb for £15 per [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > available and if there is any comparison data anywhere like in one of > the Mobile Phone mags? A web browser is a good start. All the information is available to all - you just have to make a tiny effort to read it. It's not difficult to compare prices and networks. >> While passing a "3" shop today, I saw a big advert in the window >> offering mobile broadband (1Gb for £10 per month, 3Gb for £15 per [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > all - you just have to make a tiny effort to read it. It's not > difficult to compare prices and networks. True, but it's not always that easy to find all the relevent data in an easy-to-compare (ie like for like) format. It is often worth asking as someone might know of some obscure site that would help, or even have some first hand knowledge that would be of use to the OP. After all, if everyone could find out what they needed to know just by using Google, there would be no use for Usenet... :-) SignatureRegards, Chris. (Remove Elvis's shoes to email me) > While passing a "3" shop today, I saw a big advert in the window > offering mobile broadband (1Gb for £10 per month, 3Gb for £15 per [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > -- > Alasdair. Three also offer the same deals on 18 month contracts albeit with a charge for the USB dongle. Three also offer the same deal on pay-as-you-go (i.e. without a contract) -- just pay for the USB modem up front, and buy 30 days of broadband for the same amount as contract users. Finally if you're already a Three customer you can add the 'broadband' add-on to your existing account and use your handset as the modem -- that way the length of any existing contract you may have stays the same. > Three also offer the same deals on 18 month contracts albeit with a > charge for the USB dongle. If you are already a Three customer you get the dongle for free on an 18 month £15 (3GB) broadband contract. Mind you, I tried it and it was rubbish - even with 3.5G showing at 4/5 bars I never managed more than 400kbps, and normally less than half of that. Coupled with the dreadful reliability of Planet 3 this leads me to suspect that the Three broadband infrastructure is crap. Ian > Three also offer the same deals on 18 month contracts albeit with a > charge for the USB dongle. If you are already a Three customer you get the dongle for free on an 18 month £15 (3GB) broadband contract. Mind you, I tried it and it was rubbish - even with 3.5G showing at 4/5 bars I never managed more than 400kbps, and normally less than half of that. Coupled with the dreadful reliability of Planet 3 this leads me to suspect that the Three broadband infrastructure is crap. Ian Bloke at work uses it with no problems at all and gets a solid connetion in the Blackpool area even supports a VPN connection into the office. >Three also offer the same deals on 18 month contracts albeit with a >charge for the USB dongle. [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >that way the length of any existing contract you may have stays the >same. Please, do any other mobile networks offer a similar service and are the dongles locked to Three and, if so, are they unlockable like mobile phones? SignatureAlasdair. >>Three also offer the same deals on 18 month contracts albeit with a >>charge for the USB dongle. [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] >the dongles locked to Three and, if so, are they unlockable like >mobile phones? The Huawei E220, which is the USB dongle that most networks seem to offer is certainly lockable. I wish I knew how to unlock mine. Chris > While passing a "3" shop today, I saw a big advert in the window > offering mobile broadband (1Gb for £10 per month, 3Gb for £15 per > month). The idea appeals to me when I go to various parts of the > country but there are negatives. Firstly, you have to take out a > 2-year contract and I don't know what happens if you go over your > agreed limit. You can get a one year contract but you have to pay for the hardware. Ten pence per megabyte if you go over the prepaid amount of data. Click on "plan detail" on the link below http://threestore.three.co.uk/broadband/ Seems a bit steep to me (although nowhere near as bad as the orange mobile office tariff), a heavy user could run up a significant bill. Tmobile 3G broadband is slightly more expensive but if you go over the "fair use" limit in a month their policy is to tell you not to and reduce your connection speed if you keep doing it. http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/fairuse/ In my experiance the tmobile 3G is mildly unreliable but I find internet access out and about with my laptop very usefull so I put up with it to get important emails. It is no worse than the amount of fiddling it took to get a 1KB/second connection using a dialup ISP from a mobile phone. It works poorly in a building above about the tenth floor, I'm guessing it receives too many cells. On a bus in town it sometimes stays connected for twenty minutes but if it's not connected it usually dosn't connect in a moving vehicle doing 20-30mph. Trying to use it on trains dosn't work well. Seting your device to just try to use GPRS may be more reliable but lower speed. I'v only reccently started experimenting with that. Bob > Ten pence per megabyte if you go over the prepaid amount of > data. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > mobile office tariff), a heavy user could run up a significant > bill. A VERY significant bill. Working properly, 3's 'turbo' mobile broadband is supposed to give 2.8Mb/sec so if you used it full tilt, it could manage over (2.8 / 8) * 60 * 60 * 24 MB/day = 30.24GB/day. Run that for a month at £100 per GB and you're looking at a bill of over three thousand pounds, even after allowing for the inclusive allowance. So anyone who likes peer-peer filesharing would be wise to avoid it! > Tmobile 3G broadband is slightly more expensive but if you go over > the "fair use" limit in a month their policy is to tell you not to and > reduce your connection speed if you keep doing it. > http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/fairuse/ Ah, but isn't T-Mobile's just 3G speeds, which is far, far slower than what is possible with the 3 setup (in theory)? >> Tmobile 3G broadband is slightly more expensive but if you go over >> the "fair use" limit in a month their policy is to tell you not to and [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Ah, but isn't T-Mobile's just 3G speeds, which is far, far slower than > what is possible with the 3 setup (in theory)? No, T-Mobile's service is 1.8 Mbps HSDPA, or at least that's what my phone says it is. Dennis Ferguson >> Ah, but isn't T-Mobile's just 3G speeds, which is far, far slower than >> what is possible with the 3 setup (in theory)? > > No, T-Mobile's service is 1.8 Mbps HSDPA, or at least that's what my > phone says it is. Better than I thought, but only a little over half the speed of the 3 offering. >>> Ah, but isn't T-Mobile's just 3G speeds, which is far, far slower than >>> what is possible with the 3 setup (in theory)? [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Better than I thought, but only a little over half the speed of the 3 > offering. According to my T-Mobile supplied data modem, T-Mobile's HSDPA operates at 3.6 Mbps, connecting in Chingford and Tottenham... SignatureCheers, Steve. Change jealous to sad to reply. |
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