dune16
Well-Known Member
Agreed, I may actually move my mobile from giffgaff to the plus net offering. Thanks.
pay as you go internet dongle - argos success
- Thread starter dylanwinter
- Start date
Agreed, I may actually move my mobile from giffgaff to the plus net offering. Thanks.
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Is this a recent change? As I understand it you get 2 complete calendar months of feel at home in any 12 month period, rather than 30 day blocks. Any roaming period which does not extend over a whole month is not counted. I have roamed for over 30 days four times in the last year but each period was split over 2 different months. I've also used feel at home on at least a dozen other occasions of short duration.
Edit: Just checked 3's T&Cs at http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBISAPI.DLL?Command=New,Kb=Mobile,Ts=Mobile,T=Article,varset_cat=roaming,varset_subcat=4157,Case=Ext(EM38751) and the restrictions on roaming are as I described.
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thesaintlyone
Well-Known Member
Checking Back through my Data usage Last couple of Months on my phone
October 7.89 GB
November 23.9GB
December 6.9GB
Jan Current 4.75GB
That includes: Internet, Using the Phone as a mobile hotspot for both tablet and laptop and a fair bit of youtube
I use Three £25 per month (30days) Unlimited Data Bundle - Clearly is unlimited unlike all of the others which are not as good -
Someone told me about GifGaf last week so checked it out.
Allways on Plan Unlimited Data, Unlimited Texts, Unlimited Calls £20 per month However
"What is Always On?
With Always On you get 6GB of UK data at full 4G speeds. After that you’ll still be able to enjoy data, but from 8am to midnight you’ll have a reduced speed (256kbps)."
GifGaf use the O2 network so coverage might be better in some areas than three
So depends on usage
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thesaintlyone
Well-Known Member
If your spending that long in foriegn parts why not just purchase a local Bundle Sim
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
Some random findings :
Vodafone are shit.
Plusnet home broadband is horrendously slow, they must restrict it. Our home broadband comes via copper wire but has always been fast, until it was switched to Plusnet. I know others who have the same issue.
Virgin are thieves. They used to charge £1 per day if you went over the data limit, which didn't work too badly for unlimited data. They upped it to £2 per day without telling anyone !!
EE seems to work well. Coverage seems decent and download speeds are good. Works very well at Shotley.
Three is very good, customer service a bit naff, as most of them are. Coverage around Suffolk is the best i've found. I often get 4G at Shotley marina. I have the unlimited data/text/calls package, costs £33 a month on an annual contract. It is also available for slightly more money on a 30day deal. It really is unlimited, i mostly use 30gb a month but recently had a month where i used 60gb.
Vodafone are shit.
Plusnet home broadband is horrendously slow, they must restrict it. Our home broadband comes via copper wire but has always been fast, until it was switched to Plusnet. I know others who have the same issue.
Virgin are thieves. They used to charge £1 per day if you went over the data limit, which didn't work too badly for unlimited data. They upped it to £2 per day without telling anyone !!
EE seems to work well. Coverage seems decent and download speeds are good. Works very well at Shotley.
Three is very good, customer service a bit naff, as most of them are. Coverage around Suffolk is the best i've found. I often get 4G at Shotley marina. I have the unlimited data/text/calls package, costs £33 a month on an annual contract. It is also available for slightly more money on a 30day deal. It really is unlimited, i mostly use 30gb a month but recently had a month where i used 60gb.
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Because a) it's more expensive and b) I travel to different countries.
stevie69p
Well-Known Member
I have had a MiFi unit from EE bought around a year ago. I didn't want to tie myself into a landline at the hoose... 15Gb a month for around 20 quid, works well, though if I'm watching a lot of stuff on youtube I can easily end up over the allowance. Speed is decent enough, though this is in a fixed position.
NormanB
Well-Known Member
My experience with Plusnet (fibre) is different. Download speeds very good and consistently so. Upload speed crappily average. Three for mobile services has been great - especially abroad in Europe and I have found their customer service absolutely fine (but only used once for a query not answered in the FAQs of their website).
Pagetslady
Well-Known Member
Hi I have a 3g MiFi with an external antenna i am on the boat tomorrow so will get the name etc
Richard10002
Well-Known Member
I got an EE Mifi thing with a data sim deal of £27 for 50Gb per month on a 2 year contract. It was a promotion which lasted a month or so and I haven't seen as good since. Somebody here pointed it out and I snapped it up as almost too good to be true.
I guess I'm saying that if you keep your eyes and ears open, you might see a good deal, and EE seem to have good coverage at present.
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
My Three phone is unlimited data, unlimited calls, unlimited texts, 4G, 1 year contract and only £33. They were doing a deal when i signed up, first 6 months half price. Works out at £24.75 per month for the first year.
RobbieW
Well-Known Member
There's a world of difference between a deal for a data SIM and one for phone, especially with 3 who seem good at detecting when a phone SIM has been put into some other device (or tethered). Fundamentally the phone SIM pricing is for a single device and a data SIM for multiple devices potentially downloading a wide range of file types - in essence its harder to download to a phone the sort volumes its easy to do on other devices, laptops etc. I dont necessarily agree with that market differentiation or pricing policy but it seems to be the way the mobile data market has developed over the last few years as consumers have taken up mobile data with gusto.
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JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Three SIMs are either phone, tablet or dongle and they don't let them work in the wrong class of device. I had a SIM in my tablet which worked fine for a couple of years and then stopped when they started enforcing the distinction. It's the same, by the way, for Manx Telecom. I use am unlocked O2 mifi-thingy on the boat with a 3 data SIM in it, which I find works very well and better than any marina wifi I have tried.
I have had no problem tethering to my phone (also 3) but my laptop uses Linux. Friends with Windows/Mac laptops can't tether to my phone.
RobbieW
Well-Known Member
Thats interesting to know, thanks. There are a number of ways that providers are said to detect tethering so I wonder whats different about your Linux; do you use an unusual browser or one of the 'standard' ones ?
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No 3 data sim will work with a phone, and vica versa as JD states. A contract 3 sim will allow tethering (legitimately) in the UK.3 PAYG does not offer this facility.Abroad, neither contract nor PAYG sims provide a tethering facility- and believe me, I've tried long and hard.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Normally Firefox or Chro,ium, sometime Chrome or Epiphany (Web). I'm guessing some sort of sniffing at the useragent information.
I have a cheap contract SIM from 3 which supposedly does not permit tethering, or didn't when I got it anyway. They keep changing the rules.
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
My phone is tethered to a laptop running Windows 7 and a tablet running Android. It also works fine with the wifes iPad.
Three state a max of 30gb tethered, unlimited on the phone. According to my account, i don't use any tethered....................
Three state a max of 30gb tethered, unlimited on the phone. According to my account, i don't use any tethered....................
RobbieW
Well-Known Member
Found the time to refresh my memory on this; so, yes, the useragent is one of the methods - that can be spoofed - but its reckoned that this method is now less used. The one that seems to have most traction last year was the use of the TTL, time to live, parameter in each transmission. I think the Linux default, 64, is the same as ios/android but Windows/MacOs seem to use 128. TTL is decremented with each hop so its fairly easy to sniff the packets and determine whether its likely to have come from a phone or a PC, not sure about tablets in this scenario. For the determined its possible to change the default TTL on many OSs to 65 so that it appears as 64 once its passed through the phone/modem.
The other way is to use a VPN for all transmissions but that involves extra cost
charles_reed
Well-Known Member
To correct some misapprehensions - Plusnet is part of BT as is EE. Plusnet have absorbed EE subsidiary LIFE, the EE cheapie provider.
Plusnet don't offer more than a 30 day contract, which automatically rolls over - so you have to give them 30 days notice of leaving and all that they offer are their 1 month packages, which vary in size and look very attractive.
https://www.plus.net/mobile/plans/s...le&gclid=CLGHhbDPs9ECFZBNGQod0LwJLw&gclsrc=ds
In this case no usage outside UK rules them out for me even though they were offering x4 the value offered by GiffGaff.
However GiffGaff, in all the European countries, in which I've used them, have teamed up with the #1 carrier in that country - Greece, Finland, France, Switzerland.
For anyone sailing and using their mobiles inside the UK Plusnet currently offer a more attractive package than anyone else in the UK.
Giffgaff operate with the O2 network (ironically BT Mobile before being sold to Telfonica), that network is on a par, for UK coverage, with Vodafone, neither as good as BT/EE.
As to tethering - all the mobile providers are trying to stop customers from doing it, it's a techie battle as they find various (legal) ways to cut it out and their ever-competent, adversarial customers find ways (probably not so legal) around them. But that's the story of all software/telecomms markets - look at what Microsoft have done with their 3rd iteration of UEFI.
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
I keep saying it, but perhaps my laptop is posting in invisible text, Three data contracts (annually or monthly) do allow tethering.