mobile broadband via a 'dongle'

Courage Monsieur
Courage Monsieur Posts: 534
edited July 2008 in The bottom bracket
Hi

Considering mobile broadband via a USB modem, probably with Vodafone.

Has anyone had any experiences with any of the providers?

The web is awash with people reporting very poor speeds.

I'll use it at home mainly as an alternative to a BT line, which I don't have at the mo anyway.

Cheers

Paul

Comments

  • hammerite
    hammerite Posts: 3,408
    I'm using a Vodafone dongle right now! Works a treat generally where there is a good mobile signal, but suffers from the obvious problems when the signal is poor or you are smack bang in the middle of a heavily concreted building.

    There is in built content filtering to stop under 18s viewing stuff they shouldn't (primarily set up so u18s couldn't download dodgy pictures/videos on their mobiles). But you can have it disabled if you like, I haven't as I use it prredominantly for work purposes (I'm having a break at the mo :lol: )
  • gkerr4
    gkerr4 Posts: 3,408
    I have a couple of them through work - I have a vodafone one and a t-mobile one.

    I prefer the t-mobile one - Voda had some issues (inmy area) with the backhaul connection being poor so the performance was awful. Also the voda one I have is a PCMCIA card while the t-mobile one is a USB thing so it works on my Apple Mac (which has an expressport rather than a PCMCIA)

    they are good though - the portability is excellent. I'm not sure how they deal with contention ratios though I'll soon find out as I have just given 400 of them away to school children in the area!
  • Courage Monsieur
    Courage Monsieur Posts: 534
    Hi
    Thanks for your thoughts, guys.
    Here's what happened:
    I took Vodafone up on the £15 a month scheme, for 12 months. They gave me a free 7.2mbps modem, which not long ago you had to pay extra for.
    No chance of hitting those speeds of course, but I was expecting that.
    I get between 30kbps and 2meg download speeds. Higher during quieter times. Sometimes it crawls at dial-up speeds. However, very easy to use and I am pleased with it, as the alternative was getting my BT line reconnected or getting Virgin in, who have had shocking reviews online.
    So, I'd recommend it, but just be sure you don't need full broadband speeds all the time.
    Cheers
    Paul

Categories