Sorry, another broadband dongle question

[freedom44]

I have been having a remarkable “conversation” by email with O2 who supply my mobile broadband dongle. I am very happy with it if I use it in the UK, but as soon as I go abroad, I cannot connect to any network, be it O2 based in the foreign country or any other provider.
All I want is to download a few emails with grib attachments and maybe visit some weather sites, but no great usage.
The joke is that I contacted O2 before I went to Spain to open the dongle for foreign use and agreed that I would have to pay an extra charge if I used it abroad.
It did not work. Neither in Spain or in Portugal
On my return I emailed their customer support and after a number of useless responses, they have admitted that O2s Mobile Broadband Dongle does not work abroad although they clearly advertise it as doing so.
The final irony is that it is owned by a Spanish company!
So my question is to the assembled company, who do you subscribe to get a mobile broadband dongle which works in Europe and one which is charged by usage not by a day rate.
Many thanks for any advise

 

[Blue5]

Get it unlocked or buy a 3.co.uk unlocked dongle off e-bay, you then buy local sim for whatever country you are in, typically 10£ or € for 30days

 

[rtchina]

dongle

spot on, get a local one, it always works out much cheaper, often amazingly so.

 

[Richard10002]

Local SIMs in an unlocked dongle, (or phone),worked for me on a leisurely trip across the Med. in 2007.

On the dash back this summer, there was no time to get local SIMs, so I used my UK T-Mobile SIM in my Nokia N95 connected to the netbook. Worked fine and I think the cost was about £4 per Mb.

 

[Bobobolinsky]

I've got the Huwei E220 which is an ex 3G unlocked modem. I got for £20 off ebay. I chose the E220 because it was the model that I first hired at Jo'burg airport from Vodacom.
When I first used it, I found that the embedded firmware didn't work. A guy sells the alternative firmware on ebay for about £4.50. I got new software from a mate who lent me his E220 modem. This also doubled the download speed. Many countries in the "third world" have better mobile broadband than the UK. I buy 2 Gig of data from vodacom in SA for R389 (£30, due to a terrible exchange rate). I buy it as airtime and convert it to a bundle. It lasts 30 days of surfing and emails. I use it and my mate uses it and sometimes quite a few others. It lasts easily. In the UK I can't get anywhere near that value and voda don't do data bundles, unless you get their modem which does not work outside the UK.

 

[Bosun Higgs]

what I dont understand is why we have to buy them from the phoner companies at all. We dont buy cars from BP so why dongles from O2 and the like. Why cant we buy direct from the doingle makers or their dsitributors