Mobile Broadband.

Cardiffcruiser

Cardiffcruiser

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Hi,
I'm looking for a mobile broadband dongle that will provide basic browsing and email onboard. However I don't want to pay monthly. I'd rather buy however many Gb to use as required. All of the deals I've seen have top ups that only last a month which means you may as well pay monthly. I doubt I'll actually use it every month.

The only other option I've seen is O2's pay daily/weekly option which seems overpriced. They charge £2 per day, whereas I get unlimited daily internet access on my phone for only 30p (Virgin Mobile). I want to use my laptop as there are many things that can't be done on the phone.

Anyone found anything better?
 
I don't know of any non time limited PAYG offers now that Vodafone have recently withdrawn their's for new customers. Otherwise, the cheapest I found was Orange, 500 Mb per month for £5 pm, but supposedly only for existing Orange customers so perhaps no good for you. I think it's still on offer.
 
Cardiffcruiser said:
Hi,
I'm looking for a mobile broadband dongle that will provide basic browsing and email onboard. However I don't want to pay monthly. I'd rather buy however many Gb to use as required. All of the deals I've seen have top ups that only last a month which means you may as well pay monthly. I doubt I'll actually use it every month.

The only other option I've seen is O2's pay daily/weekly option which seems overpriced. They charge £2 per day, whereas I get unlimited daily internet access on my phone for only 30p (Virgin Mobile). I want to use my laptop as there are many things that can't be done on the phone.

Anyone found anything better?
Click to expand...
Connect your phone to the laptop and use it as a BB modem, all the latest phones have an option to do that, then it only costs you 30p!
Stu
 
Cardiffcruiser said:
The only other option I've seen is O2's pay daily/weekly option which seems overpriced. They charge £2 per day, whereas I get unlimited daily internet access on my phone for only 30p (Virgin Mobile). I want to use my laptop as there are many things that can't be done on the phone.

Anyone found anything better?
Click to expand...

Buy an un-tied dongle or a Virgin dongle (£25) and use the Virgin service.Be a Virgin ;-)
 
There still seem to be a few of the earlier Vodafone dongles on Amazon and ebay - worth a try?
I agree the original offer was perfect for the purpose.
 
The first Vodafone offer gave you unlimited duration with a download limit.

With the new offer, you get a one month limit after the top up, whether you use it or not. Very poor value for money for the occasional user.
 
I bought T-Mobile and Vodafone PAYG dongles to use round the UK last year. I wish I had got 3 as well (it has better 3G coverage). Coverage is usually the issue round the coast. T and V were down on GPRS most of the time, so whether it was 1 GB or 3 GB of data, it didn't matter, getting a tenth of that was difficult. T had a fairly obvious data rate throttle, ok for emails but a strangler for the web.

If you get anywhere near Ireland, watch out for V. Its dongle locks on to Vodafone Ireland happily, but that's roaming, so they suck you credit dry in a minute.

The good part was I got some coverage most places round the coast, so I was not entirely cut off and only used the BGAN terminal once.
 
earlybird said:
I don't know of any non time limited PAYG offers now that Vodafone have recently withdrawn their's for new customers. .
Click to expand...

Bit of a mystery this. I've been using the "Three" network 3G PAYG Dongle for almost eighteen months now. For the first year the cost was around £120, then last November I extended for another year at a cost of £80. These charges allow me the use one gigabyte per month, so twelve Gb in all, in the past four months I only used a quarter of this amount so far - so I will have to 'go somewhat' if I used it all up by the end of the period - almost certain I will not in fact.

It is not as if I am not on-line much either. Many days an hour and a half or so, and that not light either, lately I've been viewing Street View quite a lot, all in all I'm really pleased with the service, fact I reckon its much better than the WiFi network in the marina, so now I rarely use that.

I don't like Direct Debits out of my account either!
 
Thanks for this, I think I'll try connecting my phone, if this works and I only get charged 30p a day that'll be great.

I hadn't realised that existing vodaphone users still got the 270 day deal (the one I was originally going to go for but was too late), so I'll get one of them too, to increase the chances of good signal.
 
RAI said:
I bought T-Mobile and Vodafone PAYG dongles to use round the UK last year. I wish I had got 3 as well (it has better 3G coverage). Coverage is usually the issue round the coast. T and V were down on GPRS most of the time, so whether it was 1 GB or 3 GB of data, it didn't matter, getting a tenth of that was difficult. T had a fairly obvious data rate throttle, ok for emails but a strangler for the web.

If you get anywhere near Ireland, watch out for V. Its dongle locks on to Vodafone Ireland happily, but that's roaming, so they suck you credit dry in a minute.

The good part was I got some coverage most places round the coast, so I was not entirely cut off and only used the BGAN terminal once.
Click to expand...


Most operators' dongles are Huawei. If you download the Huawei software you can swap SIMs around, you don't need to spend ££ on multiple dongles (mine happily runs BT, Vodafone PAYG, Vodafone Contract and T-Mobile SIMs).

Alisdair
 
skipper_stu said:
Connect your phone to the laptop and use it as a BB modem, all the latest phones have an option to do that, then it only costs you 30p!
Stu
Click to expand...
even on so called 'unlimited' internet phone packages, they make a distinction between phone based internet usage, and using as a modem. My 'unlimited' only gives a tiny modem usage, otherwise, you have to sign up for a mobile broadband package. Very dangerous to use phone for laptop connection on a regular basis, unless you know very clearly the usage limits and costs
 
skipper_stu said:
Connect your phone to the laptop and use it as a BB modem, all the latest phones have an option to do that, then it only costs you 30p!
Stu
Click to expand...

Like Stu - I have a T-Mobile Sim only contract which gives me 1Gb per month Fair Usage and, whilst I have a dongle, I prefer to tether my phone to the laptop.

Check Virgins terms for the use of their 30p per day service. If it allows you to use the sim attached to a laptop, then that's the way to go. Dont forget to check their Fair Usage Policy... Unlimited means different things with different networks, and different deals with the same network.
 
I use a combination
I have a 3, 3g dongle and sim. Works fine, but I find at end of month I'm running short. So I connect my phone and use up the laptop on the phone connection. I monitor usage very carefully though, as if I go over the free mobile broadband usage, as opposed to the unlimited phone internet usage, it could cost me dearly. Very dearly.

PS, and that is just in the UK, overseas complicates matters enormously
 
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agurney said:
Most operators' dongles are Huawei. If you download the Huawei software you can swap SIMs around, you don't need to spend ££ on multiple dongles (mine happily runs BT, Vodafone PAYG, Vodafone Contract and T-Mobile SIMs).

Alisdair
Click to expand...
Yes, I discovered the similarity after buying them. However, the PAYG deals they were offering at the time more or less gave the dongle away, so I didn't feel I lost much. What did irk me was their insistence on no use of Skype.
 
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"Three" dongles and phones.

I have both a phone (Skypephone S2) and dongles from "Three", all on PAYG. The phone also functions as a dongle exactly the same as a stand-alone dongle.

An interesting anomoly:............. Every time you top up a PHONE SIM (the minimum is £5) you get amongst other things 150Mb 'free' data allowance(90 days) which can be used for 'dongle use'. You can of course also buy data at the usual £10/1Gb (30 days) rate. This works also if you put a 'phone' SIM in a standalone dongle.

However, If you use a stand-alone dongle with it's ORIGINAL SIM, you don't get the 'free' 150Mb, and simply get the usual £10/1Gb/30day deal.

I find the 150Mb allowance sufficient for odd nights on the boat in winter, and simply store up the credits to buy larger chunks of data when I need them.

Vic
 
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