Mi-Fi ???

[KINGFISHER 8]

Does anyone use these things on the boat? Do they work? Neither of us is IT savvy - buying the gadget is ok but we're both lost when it comes to the sim card bit - do we get pay as you go or a 2 year contract? How long does 10/20/40 GB last maybe watching tv on a tablet for 2 hours a night? We have no idea and the more I read about it the more confusing the deals seem to be! 3 Mobile have it all set out but there's no way of telling how much data we would use watching the news twice a day and a film or a couple of 1 hour programmes. Maximum 3 days a week in the summer, less in winter. If anyone uses one of these devices what's the best plan for what we want one for? Any help appreciated in plain language please! … :encouragement:

 

[ryanroberts]

For occasional use that should be fine, though you might have to stick it to a hatch. It's hard to predict actual data use accurately as there are a lot of variables. At a rough guess 20GB should be fine for that sort of use.

 

[duncan99210]

First off, do you have a smart phone of any type? If you do, then you can use that for internet access by pairing it to whatever device you’re going o use to watch TV. Be easier to adjust your current contract with your mobile provider than buying a new mifi plus SIM. That’s how we manage our data connection in UK and Greece where we spend the summer aboard the boat.

As to the amount of data to choose, we use somewhere in the region of 30-35 GB per month but we don’t watch any significant amounts of TV.

 

[alex_m24]

I was going to go down the mifi route until vodafone came out with the unlimited deals for around £25 a month. Now all I do is hotspot from my iPhone to whatever i am using to watch the TV, either the firestick or laptop. Other phones can also do the same.

Basically all mifi does is give you a dedicated internet connection, most phones nowadays can do this as well its called a hotspot. This means you dont have to buy the mifi device as well as having an additional sim card.

Below is a guide from a quick google search, bear in mind the higher the quality the more data you will use.

Watching TV shows or movies on Netflix uses about 1 GB of data per hour for each stream of standard definition video, and up to 3 GB per hour for each stream of HD video. Downloading and streaming consume a similar amount of data.

BBC iPlayer (quoted directly from their site): “60 minutes of video may consume between 50MB and 350MB of data depending on your available connection speed.” Given that most of us will plump for 1-2GB of data for an entire month then, it's easy to see how your entire allowance can disappear in a matter of hours

Normal-quality music streaming uses 1.20MB per minute or 72MB per hour on average. High quality music is typically 320kbps. High-quality streaming music uses 2.40MB per minute or 115.2MB per hour on average

 

[alex_m24]

Sorry i forgot to mention the data usage. If you are going to use data to watch TV I would opt for an unlimited deal. 2 hours of netflix per night for a month is around 90Gb. At around £25 per month the vodafone deals are really a no brainer in my opinion.

When bing watching a series on netflix we burned over 400 Gb per month(the wife was off on maternity at the time so this is exceptional)

 

[KINGFISHER 8]

Thanks for the replies above. Doesn't sound as though it's worth the hassle!
I think I'll carry on downloading films to my tablet and watching that when we get a rare wet evening and don't want to sit in the cockpit with a bottle of wine! …. :encouragement:

 

[JumbleDuck]

I have a Mi-Fi on board. Used to have a Three sim in it - 24GB lasted three months - but this year I tried EE, which was fine. Mine has an external aerial which help enormously. My phone can be tethered too, but the Mi-Fi just sits there and does its stuff very conveniently.

 

[KINGFISHER 8]

I have a Mi-Fi on board. Used to have a Three sim in it - 24GB lasted three months - but this year I tried EE, which was fine. Mine has an external aerial which help enormously. My phone can be tethered too, but the Mi-Fi just sits there and does its stuff very conveniently.

Thanks … how much use did you get for your 24GB in 3 months? We're looking for a couple of hours a night for, say, in 3 months, 20 nights maybe.

 

[Bob the Dog]

Had a MiFi box for 3 years. I got a TpLink7350 which I wired into the boat supply via a 12/5 volt adaptor. Runs on EE 50 Gb which as I use it every day is only just enough. As previous posters say Voda unlimited is the way to go. I would just fail to mention that its going into a MiFi box as the people in the shop think there is a difference between a phone byte and an internet byte and thus might decline to sell you a card as it’s supposed to go into phone. Just tell them its for your phone or do it online. Mine mounted in an enclosed wheelhouse and performs very well. Some phones have a slow transfer speed when hot spotting whereas the MiFi gives as much as the network allows. Also, if you over use (been there, done that) and get cut off until it reactivates you can still use that phones data as a Slow backup. This assumes you have a monthly contract.

 

[LadyInBed]

Both my phone and MiFi are PAYG, I think I am quite a light user.
My MiFi has a Three PAYG data only sim. When I bought it it was an 'Internet with legs' deal of 1Gb for £10 and if you register it with Three you get 200Mb / month free ongoing, which appears to be used first before any topup data. After the data ran out I topped it up and was pleased to discover that this topup data didn't time expire which for me is great as it only gets used intermittently for a few month a year on the boat when I use a bit less than a Gig a month.
Three have a comparison chart HERE
I see Three have a 'Double Data' deal at the moment, but the GiffGaff 'unlimited' for £25 looks good without checking the small print.

 

[Graham376]

We have a 30gb p.m. Vodaphone Portugal 4G contract. Laptop on roughly 12 hours per day, tablet about the same and TV for an hour or so, UK TV via Transponder TV which costs £6.50 p.m. Can sometimes go over the 30gb if watching some good series extending TV time to 2 hours/ day. Hotspot via phones not viable for us, we're on PAYG.

If buying a mobile router, make sure it's unlocked for any sim/country.

 

[Graham376]

I was going to go down the mifi route until vodafone came out with the unlimited deals for around £25 a month. Now all I do is hotspot from my iPhone to whatever i am using to watch the TV, either the firestick or laptop. Other phones can also do the same.

Not sure which UK Vodafone contract you have but, when I enquired about the so-called unlimited 4G mobile sim, they said roaming abroad restricted to 2 months which is useless for us and maybe the OP based in France.

 

[Forty_Two]

If you spend a fair bit of time in SoF & have a French bank a/c get a 4G MiFi & use a SIM from French company "Free". €19.99/mth gives you 100GB per month.

Obviously check their coverage in your area first.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Thanks … how much use did you get for your 24GB in 3 months? We're looking for a couple of hours a night for, say, in 3 months, 20 nights maybe.

I go away on the boat for a month a year, so that was three consecutive Julys (Julies?). I don't watch a great deal of video on board but I do do some work, and before I bulk bought data I used to reckon on about 4 - 6GB for the month. According to Netflix themselves:

so your 20 nights look like 40GB or so. Although some providers offer unlimited data - Three for example - I think that's usually for devices like phones and tablets, with tethering discouraged. A friend, for example, could not watch video on a Windows laptop tethered to my phone - though I can with a Linux one, which probably means the Three don;t check for Linux browser user agent strings (which say which program is being used).

Things may have changed since then. If not in your case I would go for a 24GB data SIM (£44 on Amazon for Three, £49 for EE) and resign myself to buying another if necessary. Not topping up - that costs far more.

Sorry, bit of a ramble.

 

[Daverw]

MiFi with network 3, connected to 12dc to USB adapter, stuck onto shelf next to chart table, 20GB of data on contract, used ok for last 3 years

 

[PaulRainbow]

I'm another user of mobile phone as a hotspot. No additional hardware to buy, phone always has the hotspot on and the laptop onboard connects automagically when the phone is in range. The laptop is connected to a bulkhead mounted 24" LED TV, so i can watch anything from the internet in decent quality.

Forget the limited data deals or PAYG, they work out costly in most cases. Three are currently offering unlimited calls/texts/data for just £20 per month for a SIM only 12m contract. I'm pretty sure roaming is included, but check for yourself.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Forget the limited data deals or PAYG, they work out costly in most cases. Three are currently offering unlimited calls/texts/data for just £20 per month for a SIM only 12m contract. I'm pretty sure roaming is included, but check for yourself.

All their unlimited data plans are for phones, the cheapest being £21/month for a 24-month contract. See http://www.three.co.uk/Store/SIM/Plans_for_phones, and I see that tethering is now explicitly permitted. The don't - or didn't, when I last checked - allow phone SIMs to be used in tablets or dongles, for which they have SIMs with 100GB/month for £24/month over 24 months (http://store.three.co.uk/view/searchTariff?priceplan=&deviceType=SIM_ONLY_MBB) which is probably as good as unlimited for most purposes.

I've just changed home broadband provider and have gone from unlimited to 200GB/month. I shall be interested to see if it's enough.

 

[pcatterall]

My wife and I share our '3' mifi which is pay as you go. We only use it when in Spain ( 2 months a year) Our phones are PAYG and we normaly have very low data demands. We just put £20 on the wifi for each month and that is always plenty for both of us.
The phone signal below deck is rubbish but with the mifi up top we get good signal below decks. Works fine for our needs.

 

[KINGFISHER 8]

I'm still pondering because I only want TV … I looked at Filmon, which used to be free, but they're now £200 odd per year. I've also come across Watch TV Abroad.net which promise miracles for £48 a year … good if it works but sometimes dodgy wi-fi in the marina. A tethering device would probably be best. I looked at Free, the French phone co which I use at €2 a month … actually I never use a mobile but it's handy for emergencies. I can't make out their website but I think they promise unlimited for €19.99 a month for 100 'go' a month … I don't know what a 'go' is - is it the same as a gb? … (FortyTwo, above, suggested them)

 

[JumbleDuck]

I can't make out their website but I think they promise unlimited for €19.99 a month for 100 'go' a month … I don't know what a 'go' is - is it the same as a gb?

"octet" is the French for "byte", so yes, a gigaoctet (go) is the same as a gigabyte (GB).