Mobile broadband on phone not dongle (boaty)

[wotayottie]

I need to get a new phone for the boat but am wondering which network to chose. My 3.com dongle works well where it works but cruising round the coast the coverage is limited.

What is the coverage of O2 and T mobile and Orange like. I gather from useful comments above that 3.com is a bit better than Voda.

 

[Ubergeekian]

I need to get a new phone for the boat but am wondering which network to chose. My 3.com dongle works well where it works but cruising round the coast the coverage is limited.

What is the coverage of O2 and T mobile and Orange like. I gather from useful comments above that 3.com is a bit better than Voda.

3 falls back to Orange 2G when out of range of 3's own network. On the other hand, T-Mobile and Orange are in the process of merging, which may mean either that (a) 3 has access to a really big network or (b) 3 has to look elsewhere for 2G roaming.

Mind you, 3 is for sale as well, so who knows what the operators and networks will be in a year.

I use 3 for voice, and find them very good, and T-Mobile for mobile broadband because at the time they were the only lot to include Hotspot access - I get unlimited T-mobile hotspot access and 300 minutes / month through BT Openzone. I think O2 now offer something similar.

Finally, I forgot to take my T-Mobile dongle with me on a holiday in St Ives earlier this year and used a 3 bolt on to my phone instead. Which was OK on the whole, but upload speeds were derisory (less than 10kbps) and 3's DNS system is rubbish, which meant that I regularly could not access some sites. Like google, for example, or eBay.

 

[Heckler]

Stu

Are you saying that on your £25 pay monthly plan with orange, you get:

* free upgrade phone of your choice
* 400 minutes a month talk time
* free 3G mobile internet access (unlimited)
* free home broadband (unlimited)?

Sounds like a good deal - which plan are you on?

Yes
Dont know, will look later
Stu

 

[mobeydick]

HSDPA is 3.5G. 3G has a max of about 356Kbit, whereas 3.5G gets up to about 3.5Mbit

Strictly, not so. HS(D)PA is part of the 3G standards. '3.5G' is an informal description of a 3G networks which has implemented HSPA in some form. 3G covers HSPA up to 14Mbps/6Mbps download/upload speeds or more. I believe 7.6Mbps D/L is available now in some places.

Coming is LTE (Long Term Evolution) or 4G, with up to 100Mbps download speeds......



MD

 

[Matt341]

I decided this was something that I needed when it came to renew my contract back in August, the marina has bad signal on some networks so I decided to stay with orange as they had 3G+ coverage.

I have a Sony w595 with 400 mins, unlim text and unlim internet browsing, I think this is about 1gb fair usage.

Its an 18month contract and incl VAT per month works out just under £25.

I can view everything on the phone or can connect it to my laptop and when I have 3g coverage the internet is as fast as at home, in 2g areas it still works but not quite as fast.

I used it this summer all around Cornwall and most of the south Coast and it was brilliant.

I dont know now how I managed without it.

Hope this helps
Ian

 

[Babylon]

Decision made

Well, I've dealt with it now and agreed a fresh Orange 18mth contract for £22 a month:

* new Nokia 6700 (great new phone) http://shop.nokia.co.uk/nokia-uk/product.aspx?sku=4018026&section_id=530&culture=en-GB
* 600 minutes (more than enough)
* 300 texts (way more than enough)
* free landline calls (important)
* 80MB of data download a month (enough - see below)

The phone itself is a traditional style, small and lightweight mobile phone, albeit a real workhorse with a reasonable size screen, 4-5 hrs talking, 300 hr standby, 3G data speed, 5 MP camera, video camera, 1GB microSD memory card (can go to 8GB), all the latest calling, texting, browsing, emailing features, and torch, GPS, etc.

The 80MB of data a month is more than enough for occassional small-screen browsing (most people average 4-10 MB on mobile phones anyway). For proper browsing on the laptop will get a dedicated Vodafone PAYG dongle - and if the Vodafone coverage is poor in any given area, then can at least try the Orange mobile for backup 3G signal.

I did BTW think long and hard about an iPhone with its zillions of apps, very seductive, but decided against it for the time being.

Thanks for all the advice

 

[fireball]

<snip>
The 80MB of data a month is more than enough for occassional small-screen browsing (most people average 4-10 MB on mobile phones anyway). </snip>

OOops - just checked my phone usage stats - sent 12.2Mb, received 23.8Mb .... since last weekend ... and that's just on the cellular network - doesn't include Wifi!! Just as well it's unlimited!