3G Mobile Internet

teaboy5

teaboy5

teaboy5

Soldato
Joined
12 Jan 2006
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UK
Hello

My gf is at uni at the minute and doesn't have the internet in the flat she rents. Now she doesn't want to have to pay for a phone line to be installed and virgin media already have equipment in the house, but refuse to talk to her as she isn't the account holder. The old account holder has left the country for a round the world trip, and she doesn't know him.

Now i was just gonna pick up one of the vodafone 3g data cards, as all she will be looking is some research meterial, so i dont have to worry about downloads etc.

Has anyone used one of these before? and what are the speeds like? The area is belfast, so its 3g where she is.
 
As long as you can get a reasonable 3G signal for browsing, IM and E-Mail they are pretty good option for these kind of situations.

I have a Vodafone one and in most cities get a good 3-4Mbit/sec downstream from it, latency is pretty high (avg. 300ms) but is consistent and reliable.

Think I'm paying £15/month for 3Gb of usage and on a 12 month contract I had to pay a bit for the modem but decided that was OK as I don't like being tied into things like these new 18-24 month contracts.
 
Im an owner of one by 3, and in all honestly its crap, its got this built in install function that uses the USB first recognised as a CD device, and after its done with installing drivers it switches to the modem mode.

ok, that doesn't seem half bad, at least it installs itself, but half the time it fails to install correctly, and i have to keep removing it and replugging it to get it to install.

next thing to whine about is the connectivity and speed, i've had a period where it just refused to connect to the remote server for over a week. Even if it did connect, it would lose connection within 5minutes. okay at times i did get a decent connection but no where near what they advertised as 2.8mbt, at most i got was 1mbt

That was when i was in Stafford, i had full signal bars, so i'd expect a perfect connection. Now i've moved to london, at my current residence, i get a total of 2 signal bars at most, and speeds are barely 56k dial up.

phew.. sorry about the long post, just had to get the built up frustration out my system :D
 
At work, I am the main person to cancel all of the mobile broadband contracts + sort people out with new ones.

We do 3, tmobile and vodafone, and my advice would be to go into your nearest purple shirt store, and get a vodafone £15 p/m 18 month contract. Get the dongle free instead of paying £79 for it when going on a 12 month contract, so your essentially paying an extra tenner overall for an extra 6 months.

I hardly ever do any vodafone refunds, 3 and tmobile being the main culprits.

So basically, if you want reliability, and the fastest speed - go for vodafone :)
 
I have a 3 one. And ot only ever installs itself when you either change port (Whcih is par for the course anyhow, every usb device does this) or on a first install. I have been using the Mobile ZTE (Black with green stripe) and in places I get poor signal, but this is to be expected, my mobile is the same.
 
Bengaboy said:
At work, I am the main person to cancel all of the mobile broadband contracts + sort people out with new ones.

We do 3, tmobile and vodafone, and my advice would be to go into your nearest purple shirt store, and get a vodafone £15 p/m 18 month contract. Get the dongle free instead of paying £79 for it when going on a 12 month contract, so your essentially paying an extra tenner overall for an extra 6 months.

I hardly ever do any vodafone refunds, 3 and tmobile being the main culprits.

So basically, if you want reliability, and the fastest speed - go for vodafone :)
Click to expand...

hey can i cancel mine then? :( i dont want to pay another 12 months for a service i dont get to use
 
Most of them offer a 14 day cooling off period so if its no good for where she lives you can always take it back and try another operator.

I travel an awful lot because of work and will say that Voda gives me a good 3G signal in just about most place I've been, even out in the middle of nowhere!
 
ive set up a fair few 3 ones and they seem excellent value, especially on the payg method.

sometimes the install messes up but on the whole them seem fine, they have all been in built up areas so i cant commment on reception and speed in out of town places.
 
Get a copy of proof of tenancy and send a copy to virgin with a letter saying you would like them to terminate the old account.

Then open a new account and have some fast reliable internet.
 
I use one of these when i'm on call for work which is on vodafone. Got to say i was really impressed with the speeds. Connected at 3.6mbit and was pretty snappy, getting pings of 170ms on average.

This is in contrast to my t-mobile web and walk which i have connected through bluetooth to my phone, this only connects at 368k.

I suppose it really depends on your location, but if you get a good vodafone 3g/HDSPA signal i can defiantly recommend one.
 
try and ask the person for the password to the account then do a change of ownship or forge there death certificate:D
 
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