pay as you go internet dongle - argos success

stu9000 said:
My need is not particularly great but I would use a portable WiFi hotspot from mobile phone to laptop. In the USA tethering is quite restricted but its easier for us brits. Your phone provider might mumble some nonsense about a fee to enable it but there are plenty of apps out there that will do it. You might need to change your phone tariff of course as you would be using more bandwidth. But 3g might give you quite good coverage for checking e mails and slowish browsing. 4g is out there but not everywhere. My concern with wifi would be how good the connection is where ever I was parked. Although you can have quite a lot of fun making parabolic dishes out of collanders to boost the signal.
For me, I have a smart phone already so I use what I'm already paying for.
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I'm currently on a Cable Ship in the middle of the North Sea, on the boundary between the UK & Norwegian sectors. Here, we've been given a 4g dongle that is linked into the Norwegian sector routing stuff. Terrific speed, better than at home on the Black Isle by far. The UK don't really have the mind set to provide this kind of thing.
 
Niffler said:
I wish I could find a mifi type box that will take an external aerial.
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There are quite a few.

Huawei 5776 is sitting on my table. 4G and takes one external aerial. Some of the Huawei mifi take 2 aerials which would future proof for when the networks have enough bandwidth to offer MIMO.
 
A quick update on the 'Three' Data SIM / MIFI situation using their "Feel at Home" roaming.

I was tempted by the 10gig a month for £16 rolling thirty day contract which gives roaming in France and Spain (as well as other EU counties). It does, but not forever...

You can have three 30 day periods of 'Feel at Home' roaming in any 12 months of continuous SIM use. Between these thirty day periods the SIM must go back to the UK to register (be used on) the Three UK network. It only needs to be present in the UK long enough to register, you can push off back to Spain or whatever the same day if you like, whereupon your next thirty-day period begins. I didn't ask whether the thirty-day periods can be split, like four one-week periods.

It's designed for holidays, as they have said, so fair play to them. Not much use to us unfortunately; we'll be tweeking the wifi range booster antenna for the forseeable future!
 
For travel I use a Huawei 3G/4G mifi box that is used with a 3 mobile 1Gb for 30 days PAYG data sim that is actually cheaper to buy a new SIM each time on Amazon than renew - usually about £8 for a new sim or £10 to renew!

If I'm somewhere with no free wifi I first of all try tethering my O2 iphone, if that does not get an adequate signal I try the Huawei. Often there are months the Huawei is not used, and the data runs out, but with a new sim each time you are at least not paying monthly charges. These options are also used on the excessively regular occasions our home/office broadband is down.
 
i use 3g 15gb month contract £17 month ,the mifi and dongle stop working after a few months so i use the tethering option on my Samsung s3 works great and the coverage is good for medway/Thames i was told by 3 that unlimited tethering was to be discontinued (max allowance 4gb month)
 
jwilson said:
For travel I use a Huawei 3G/4G mifi box that is used with a 3 mobile 1Gb for 30 days PAYG data sim that is actually cheaper to buy a new SIM each time on Amazon than renew - usually about £8 for a new sim or £10 to renew!
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My choice also ... though I achieved £6.73 each on ebay for a couple of 1Gb/30day sims last time ;) Best value for me though is a 3Gb/3month sim at around £20. (I still end up wasting a lot of the data allowance usually though because I then find a free hotspot :( ).
 
Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I've been looking at connectivity options for when my boat arrives. Thought it may be of interest to some that Amazon are doing a Three PAYG data SIM with 24GB included data that you can use over a period of 24 months for just £28. Damn good price and coverage with Three is now pretty decent.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trio-Pay-Mobile-Broadband-Pack/dp/B01M3VJ2B2/

I've been testing mine at home in a TP-Link mifi box and getting very solid 4G signal, hoping I'll get 3G at SYH.
 
dune16 said:
Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I've been looking at connectivity options for when my boat arrives. Thought it may be of interest to some that Amazon are doing a Three PAYG data SIM with 24GB included data that you can use over a period of 24 months for just £28. Damn good price and coverage with Three is now pretty decent.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trio-Pay-Mobile-Broadband-Pack/dp/B01M3VJ2B2/

I've been testing mine at home in a TP-Link mifi box and getting very solid 4G signal, hoping I'll get 3G at SYH.
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Thanks, that looks a very good deal
 
I have had one of these for a couple of years and am very pleased with it. Can be messy putting more data credit on it and also getting tablet to recognise the dongle is fiddly (camera photo recognition of code in cover).
 
dune16 said:
Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I've been looking at connectivity options for when my boat arrives. Thought it may be of interest to some that Amazon are doing a Three PAYG data SIM with 24GB included data that you can use over a period of 24 months for just £28. Damn good price and coverage with Three is now pretty decent.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trio-Pay-Mobile-Broadband-Pack/dp/B01M3VJ2B2/

I've been testing mine at home in a TP-Link mifi box and getting very solid 4G signal, hoping I'll get 3G at SYH.
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Plusnet are now offering mobile phone SIMs with 2Gb tetherable data for £10 per month, or 4Gb for £15 per month. Both include more calls and texts than any ordinary person would use. They use the EE network which I think may now have more coverage than Three, but it obviously depends on your location.

The data amount doubles if you have Plusnet broadband and phone line.

https://www.plus.net/mobile/plans/s...le&gclid=CJq44obJrtECFZI8cgodZUIGlQ&gclsrc=ds

I think they may be offering double data deals without a Plusnet Home phone from time to time, based on my visits over the past few days. If the £10 per month one offers 4Gb, I'm having one to replace my Giffgaff SIM.
 
Richard10002 said:
Plusnet are now offering mobile phone SIMs with 2Gb tetherable data for £10 per month, or 4Gb for £15 per month. Both include more calls and texts than any ordinary person would use. They use the EE network which I think may now have more coverage than Three, but it obviously depends on your location.

The data amount doubles if you have Plusnet broadband and phone line.

https://www.plus.net/mobile/plans/s...le&gclid=CJq44obJrtECFZI8cgodZUIGlQ&gclsrc=ds

I think they may be offering double data deals without a Plusnet Home phone from time to time, based on my visits over the past few days. If the £10 per month one offers 4Gb, I'm having one to replace my Giffgaff SIM.
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Yes, the Plusnet offer is decent if you're after a contract. I just wanted a pay as you go sim for the mifi and liked that the 24gb of the Three offer can just be used over however many months it lasts up to 2 years rather than paying each month and perhaps not using much data from month to month. I brought 2 of the Three SIM's as I figure 48gb should keep me going for the foreseeable future and it's far cheaper buying a new SIM on that Amazon deal than the cost to top up an existing SIM directly with Three. I use Giffgaff in my mobile.
 
dune16 said:
I've had some sour business dealings with Vodafone in the past so won't use them on principal ;)
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"Your phone has run out of credit. Please top up."

"Your top-up has failed. Please contact customer services."

"You cannot contact customer services because your phone has run out of credit. Please top up."

It took me three sodding days to discover that they have a secret rule which says that you cannot top up a SIM from any one debit card more than once per month. I hate Vodafone.
 
dune16 said:
Yes, the Plusnet offer is decent if you're after a contract. I just wanted a pay as you go sim for the mifi and liked that the 24gb of the Three offer can just be used over however many months it lasts up to 2 years rather than paying each month and perhaps not using much data from month to month. I brought 2 of the Three SIM's as I figure 48gb should keep me going for the foreseeable future and it's far cheaper buying a new SIM on that Amazon deal than the cost to top up an existing SIM directly with Three. I use Giffgaff in my mobile.
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The Plusnet deal is a 30 day notice contract, so not onerous. I mention it because most people have a mobile phone with monthly costs, so having a SIM with 2 Gb of data per month, may be a solution to the data issue, for not much money, or even no money.

Clearly, if you use minimal amounts of data most of the time, but have an occasional need for several Gbs of data, then the 24Gb data SIM is the better solution.
 
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