Seasonal Wireless Broadband

[DHutch]

Im looking for something to use over summer for the odd bit od email checking but as i wont be using it for more than a few months a year was looking at pay as you go deals.

- You can swipe a 3 dongle for a fiver, which then needs toping up for about £10 a month (when used, 1gb limit) which doesnt seam to bad (assuming ok coverage)

- Otherwise other people do simular rates, £39 from Vodaphone which includes a £10 1gb topup that lasts 3months is cheap if you dont exceed the 1gb limit and coverage might be a bit better. Not sure aboue specifics for Tmobile or O2, although apprently the 02 dongle includes wifi capabilty (my laptop has wifi, but only WAP not WPA security which doesnt always work)

 

From another thread someone was paying £7-50 for 5GB a month with "3" on an 18 month contract which seamed very good, but is still £150 odd which is a bit of a commitment even if i get two summers out of it.

 

 

Daniel

[denboy]

i bought a t mobile dongle from fleabay £10 and a sim card £2 top up is a fiver and interweb is a pound a day works for me for occasional use

[Bobbybass]

Im looking for something to use over summer for the odd bit od email checking but as i wont be using it for more than a few months a year was looking at pay as you go deals.

- You can swipe a 3 dongle for a fiver, which then needs toping up for about £10 a month (when used, 1gb limit) which doesnt seam to bad (assuming ok coverage)

- Otherwise other people do simular rates, £39 from Vodaphone which includes a £10 1gb topup that lasts 3months is cheap if you dont exceed the 1gb limit and coverage might be a bit better. Not sure aboue specifics for Tmobile or O2, although apprently the 02 dongle includes wifi capabilty (my laptop has wifi, but only WAP not WPA security which doesnt always work)

 

From another thread someone was paying £7-50 for 5GB a month with "3" on an 18 month contract which seamed very good, but is still £150 odd which is a bit of a commitment even if i get two summers out of it.

 

 

Daniel

I have a '3' dongle (unlocked) I bought cheap on Ebay.

Purchase a 'top up' and once its activated register yourself on the 3 mobile site.

Register a credit card on the site for future top ups (takes about a week to authorise initially)

When your first top up is nearly ended...log onto the site....go to 'purchase add ons'

Purchase internet add on for £5 / month.

That gives you fair usage internet ( I have used over 3 gig and it seems to be OK)

Keep an eye on your account and purchase another top-up before your old one expires. It automatically queues it ready to go.

Voila...3 gig internet for £5 month...and no contract !!

Happy surfing.

Bob

Edited July 8, 2009 by Bobbybass

[carlt]

Is the free 3 dongle offer still on?

 

Answer my own question....

 

Yes it is!

 

Clicky (bored with accommodating nervous clickers)

[alan_fincher]

Is the free 3 dongle offer still on?

 

Answer my own question....

 

Yes it is!

 

Clicky (bored with accommodating nervous clickers)

When I looked before, it seemed to be one of those "special offers" with an end date, but where the end date moves as you get close to it.

 

Despite the fears that this might not be legitimate, (concerns about security of some of the pages involved ?), and others talking about not receiving it, or finding mystery debits on bank accounts, mine turned up with no issues.

[Tim Lewis]

Im looking for something to use over summer for the odd bit od email checking but as i wont be using it for more than a few months a year was looking at pay as you go deals.

- You can swipe a 3 dongle for a fiver, which then needs toping up for about £10 a month (when used, 1gb limit) which doesnt seam to bad (assuming ok coverage)

- Otherwise other people do simular rates, £39 from Vodaphone which includes a £10 1gb topup that lasts 3months is cheap if you dont exceed the 1gb limit and coverage might be a bit better. Not sure aboue specifics for Tmobile or O2, although apprently the 02 dongle includes wifi capabilty (my laptop has wifi, but only WAP not WPA security which doesnt always work)

 

From another thread someone was paying £7-50 for 5GB a month with "3" on an 18 month contract which seamed very good, but is still £150 odd which is a bit of a commitment even if i get two summers out of it.

 

 

Daniel

 

I bought the £39 Vodaphone dongle and specifically checked that the 1GB included was not time limited which indeed has turned out to be the case.

 

Tim

[DHutch]

I bought the £39 Vodaphone dongle and specifically checked that the 1GB included was not time limited which indeed has turned out to be the case.

 

Tim

And how long do you find 1gb lasts?

- Say if i fire up 10 threads on canalworld, check 20 emails on gmail and 10 on horde imp, followed by a short session on nick attys canalplanner and metcheck?

 

I guess there all small usage, but if i did that everyother day how much would i get got 1gb? Presumably when they runs out, you top it up again, or face extraordinant usage charges?

 

 

Daniel

[CampinGazz]

i bought a t-mobile payg 3.5G dongle a few months ago, was 20 quid for the dongle if bought with a 20 quid top up (currys digital)

 

to use it, you first put the credit on it via text, then you can either use it straight away, where it will take 2 quid out of the credit per day, or you can buy a 7 day pass for 7 quid, or a 30 day pass for 15 quid,

 

the passes are consecutive days, hence if you know you'll use it for a month, you get a 30 day pass, but if you think you may only use it one day and not for a while after, just pay the daily charge.

 

usualy 3 gig a month fair usage limit, i know t-mobile let you go a bit over and not do anything, if you go seriousely over, first time they ask you to keep an eye on your usage (the software tracks it all for you) second time they tell you off and throttle the connection a bit for the next month, 3rd time they request you go onto a larger allowance plan, if you dont and keep going over, they will throttle the speed permanantly... seems fair to me,

 

 

another way to do it is again with t-mobile, use your phone as a modem... either via bluetooth or a data cable to connect it to the laptop, a t-mobile payg sim allows you on the internet at upto 3g speeds for a quid a day,

you just connect to the net and it charges you something like a half a p a killobyte, when you get to one quids worth of data, it stops charging, capped at a quid a day,

 

or you can buy a 5 day pass for £2.50, making it 50p a day, limit is 40megs, and if you go over regularly they do throttle it, some people have 2 or 3 t-mobile payg sims and just swap em over when they've used 40 megs a day,

your not really supposed to use the payg sims quid a day thing for connecting a laptop to the net, it is supposed to be for surfing on your phone, but as long as you dont try to use skype, download from p2p sites and so on, they dont seem to mind,

 

i only got a 3.5G dongle as my phone only does 3G, and i was constiantly in areas with 3.5G connections, and i needed more than 40 megs a day and couldent be arsed changing sims about,

 

i get a much better signal with the dongle, i have a 5 meter usb extension routed to the roof window, so if i get a gprs signal with the dongle in the laptop, sticking it up in the roof window which gets it just outside the metal box of the motorhome, i can get at least a 3G signal, usually a hsdpa one (3.5G)

 

i use my dongle only occasionaly, only when we are away in the motorhome, bought it begining of may, and still have about 4 quid left of the origional 20 quid credit, next trip i will be getting a 30 day pass tho as i plan to be out for a while,

 

only thing to remember with the t-mobile payg dongle, not sure if the others have it, but if you dont use it for 6 months they cut it off, so make sure you connect for a day during winter to keep it active for when you use it again in summer.

[dor]

nd how long do you find 1gb lasts?

- Say if i fire up 10 threads on canalworld, check 20 emails on gmail and 10 on horde imp, followed by a short session on nick attys canalplanner and metcheck?

 

I guess there all small usage, but if i did that everyother day how much would i get got 1gb? Presumably when they runs out, you top it up again, or face extraordinant usage charges?

 

I've got the vodaphone PAYG. I've had it about three months now and still have over £10 credit. You can't go over the allowance so you won't get stung for over-usage. If you use outlook or similar for email then usage is very low. It takes about 1Mb to check emails via the Orange webmail page. Canal world seems very low on usage. Use netmeter to get an idea of how much your usage is.