Be Excellent To Each Other

Am looking at a PAYG mobile dongle for when I go on holiday next month. I have the iPhone but it can be a pain for longer emails etc. So a mobile dongle seemed ideal.

We're going to the arse end of nowhere so 3G coverage is out. All the major networks are shaking their heads on the checkers saying no coverage (despite Vodaphone saying there is a good "voice" signal which presumably means 2G), Orange also say there is 2G and vaguely say you can "email".

Now back in the day of a non-Apple phone I used to tether my laptop to my mobile and try to hang on to a 1 bar GPRS signal to do various stuff and it work. Do these dongles also do 2G and will the Orange one be fine? Orange seem to suggest a good signal and I'm not averse to having one of their dongles as from experience of being on O2, when I don't have an 02 signal there is orange, and vice/versa.

Obviously 3 would be ideal but their map just shows a lot of white space and a few blocks of "outdoor" reception. Better to play safe. Shame as they had a good offer for a dongle and 12gb of use you could spread throughout the year.

Oranges website sucks big Flash bollocks and I can't see as PAYG option. Gah!

T Mobile say "good" for the Postcode I will be in. No details of if 2G or 3G.

Now I had a One2One phone back in the day. Coverage was so unspeakably shit the the memory lingers even after a rebrand. Are they any good?

I now hate Orange. Their website was designed by cunts. Student cunts. Student marketing cunts. Student marketing cunts who name their plans after fucking animals. Cunts.

T mobile coverage is fine for voice calls and slow internet (GPRS?) but their 3g network has a lot of holes.

Why not just tether your iPhone?

If you're in the middle of nowhere, trying to predict what coverage you'll have is pretty much a crapshoot. Buy an unlocked 3rd party dongle and grab one of each SIM, if you can get them with PAYG data?

If you plan to use it sporadically in the future, then t-mobile are the only provider who do proper PAYG at the moment.
i.e. You put credit on your sim and it stays on there until you use it, whether that is in a week, or 6 months.

All the others are basically a 1 month rolling contract that you can opt to buy into each month.
i.e. pay £10 for 30 days access, which expires after 30 days if you don't use it.

I have a t-mobile and an orange dongle, both do the job adequately

Didn't seem like a good deal for basically what I need for 1 week a year.

O2 have a daily rate for tethering now. £2 per day of use. Seems ideal for something you use one week a year.

Might be an idea. Will investigate. Cheers.

FWIW on my wee jaunt up to Skye yesterday 3's reception was surprisingly good, had a strong signal even in some of the crazy deep & narrow intimidating glens. Mostly 2G with 3G near most biggish towns.

Nice weekend for it Wullie.

I've noticed Orange doesn't seem to do much 2G outside major towns. Maybe they've concentrated more on 3G, dunno.

The basic GSM coverage and GPRS access has always been reasonable in out of the way places though.

o2 will do me a dongle for a tenner and I can still do the £2 a day offer. Which in many ways seems better than an iphone tether as at least it won't hammer the battery. The biggest problem with using the phone for data in poor signal areas is that you can wear out the battery in no time.

So to confirm, can these dongles work on a basic GPRS signal?

Aye, nae bother.

Cheers.

If the phone is wired to the laptop you're not hammering its battery... Is that a £10 dongle with no contract?

Yep. Although I already have a separate contract with them.

I might go for the T Mobile offer. Looking at the coverage areas having the iPhone on O2 and the dongle on another network might give me some resilience. They also have a £2 a day option but you get your first 30 days for free which more than makes up for the extra dongle cost.

My experience of T mobile suggests you will have no signal at all. Anywhere. Can't comment on O2, but for a tenner you may want to get both if it is very important.

The coverage map seems hopeful. I have the iPhone for general stuff but if I need to type longer emails when I am away the iPhone is useless for that.

Voda and Orange are out as they don't offer the right kind of packages.

That leaves O2, 3 and T Mobile. I already have O2, 3 are known for shit coverage and at least T Mobile appears to promise a signal. Looking at the coverage maps on Ofcom, T Mobiles 3G coverage is actually better than Vodaphone or O2.

Nothing like a bit of thread necromancy.

My housemate moves out next month, and the broadband connection is in his name (we're on a rolling 30 day contract). As I'm thinking about moving myself, sooner rather than later, I'd rather not tie myself into a year's broadband, and am too impatient to wait for the various setup delays, let alone fees, involved in taking out a similar contract.

Would a mobile package be suitable as a sustaining service (basic email and web - I can live without Iplayer or Youtube, for example)? I can do most of the stuff at work, but it's the evenings and weekends when not having a connection is a pain, especially when I need to sort things out with people/apply for jobs etc. Or is it likely to be so tremendously expensive and slow I would save more by going without for a bit but spend an hour in the pub each night handling important net stuff over their wi-fi?

If all you really really want to do, is a bit of browsing and email, then mobile should be fine. Assuming you are in a place with a good signal, and don't mind it not being particularly fast or completely reliable...

If it was me, I would get the E585 modem from here
http://threestore.three.co.uk/payg/?modem=1
For £70 with 3gb of data valid for 3 months
and get 12gb of data valid for 12 months for £33 from here
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Original-Broadb ... 004K2XO1G/
and make sure I go through Quidco to get £12 back, but I wouldn't count on it arriving, as 3 aren't the best at paying out.

Which, as you can see, is about £100 for 15 months worth, which isn't much cheaper than wired broadband would be, if at all! However it would give you complete flexibility.

Thanks, will look into those.

Hopefully, if someone else moves in I'll be able to convince them to take out a broadband contract which will make things a heck of a lot easier. Moreso if I get my act together and find somewhere to move to sooner rather than later.

Just to update this....

I went for the T-Mobile dongle. It's pretty good for occasional use. It uses the 3 network for HDPSA and coverage seems pretty reasonable as a result. The other week I was sat on here happily posting on the train, where my O2 mobile usually struggles. It only fell offline once during cell handover compared to 3 or 4 times the phone would usually die.

Out and about around the country I've been surprised where I've had high speed coverage, and the 2G isn't bad either.

I just have credit sitting on the account and I use it when I need the dongle. £2 per day or discounts are available for longer periods.

In short the T-Mobile dongles seem flexible, good value, and you get the combined coverage of 3 and T-Mobile.

Rating: 938 Bananas.

NB: A suitable USB extension is useful so you can hang it out of the window in marginal areas. A standard USB cable won't work, you need an active USB cable. Spent ages tearing my hair out before I realised.