Mobile broadband for poorly-connected home...

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al451@pobox.com - 07 Feb 2008 23:09 GMT

My parents-in-law live in rural Wales, with a hopelessly unreliable
phone line. But they appear to have reasonable mobile phone reception,
at least in some parts of the house.

So:

I'm looking for a good mobile broadband deal.

I'm looking for some way to assess signal strength from a network
*before* I commit to paying them much money.

I'm looking for good hardware -- good reception for a so-so signal;
not necessarily especially portable; focused on data.

Any good ideas?

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Theo Markettos - 07 Feb 2008 23:31 GMT

> I'm looking for a good mobile broadband deal.
>
> I'm looking for some way to assess signal strength from a network
> *before* I commit to paying them much money.

Networks have coverage maps on their websites which should let know know
whether you're in with a chance.

See if you can borrow an unlocked 3G phone from someone, then either borrow
SIMs from friends to test or get hold of free SIMs from
http://www.freesimcards.info/ or otherwise cheap SIMs (a few quid from
networks or eBay).

Run some tests to see what sort of real-world data rate you get.

Note that some cheap SIMs seem to be 2G - anyone know if there's a way to
distinguish a 2G SIM from a 3G SIM, especially if you're not sure if you
have 3G signal? Is there a code you can type into the phone, or do the
codes printed on the SIM differ?

Theo

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Jono - 08 Feb 2008 07:27 GMT

al451@pobox.com formulated the question :

> My parents-in-law live in rural Wales, with a hopelessly unreliable
> phone line. But they appear to have reasonable mobile phone reception,
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
>
> Any good ideas?

As Theo said, test with 3G phone beforehand.

You can buy routers that can use the 3G modem as a WAN connection, if
you want.

Voda's £25 per month package, I believe, now allows 5Gb per month.

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