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Cellular forums Home > Archive > Cell Phones in Great Britain > December 2007 > Cheapest and best mobile broadband
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Cheapest and best mobile broadband
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| Alasdair 2007-12-19, 10:33 pm |
| While passing a "3" shop today, I saw a big advert in the window
offering mobile broadband (1Gb for £10 per month, 3Gb for £15 per
month). The idea appeals to me when I go to various parts of the
country but there are negatives. Firstly, you have to take out a
2-year contract and I don't know what happens if you go over your
agreed limit.
Three started this service and no doubt other providers will follow
suit.
Perhaps the good people on this newsgroup could point me to what's
available and if there is any comparison data anywhere like in one of
the Mobile Phone mags?
--
Alasdair.
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"Alasdair" <mail@bobaxter.coo.uk> wrote in message
news:t6djm3h2ij66d8u
fn25sostoql2nql62nd@
4ax.com...
> While passing a "3" shop today, I saw a big advert in the window
> offering mobile broadband (1Gb for £10 per month, 3Gb for £15 per
> month). The idea appeals to me when I go to various parts of the
> country but there are negatives. Firstly, you have to take out a
> 2-year contract and I don't know what happens if you go over your
> agreed limit.
>
> Three started this service and no doubt other providers will follow
> suit.
>
> Perhaps the good people on this newsgroup could point me to what's
> available and if there is any comparison data anywhere like in one of
> the Mobile Phone mags?
>
> --
> Alasdair.
A web browser is a good start. All the information is available to all -
you just have to make a tiny effort to read it. It's not difficult to
compare prices and networks.
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| Usenet User 2007-12-20, 4:33 am |
| On 20 Dec, 00:24, Alasdair <m...@bobaxter.coo.uk> wrote:
> While passing a "3" shop today, I saw a big advert in the window
> offering mobile broadband (1Gb for =A310 per month, 3Gb for =A315 per
> month). The idea appeals to me when I go to various parts of the
> country but there are negatives. Firstly, you have to take out a
> 2-year contract and I don't know what happens if you go over your
> agreed limit.
>
> Three started this service and no doubt other providers will follow
> suit.
>
> Perhaps the good people on this newsgroup could point me to what's
> available and if there is any comparison data anywhere like in one of
> the Mobile Phone mags?
>
> --
> Alasdair.
Three also offer the same deals on 18 month contracts albeit with a
charge for the USB dongle.
Three also offer the same deal on pay-as-you-go (i.e. without a
contract) -- just pay for the USB modem up front, and buy 30 days of
broadband for the same amount as contract users.
Finally if you're already a Three customer you can add the 'broadband'
add-on to your existing account and use your handset as the modem --
that way the length of any existing contract you may have stays the
same.
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| ChrisM 2007-12-20, 4:33 am |
| In message 4769c6bc$1_4@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com,
Ian <ian.anders@nospam.net.uk> Proclaimed from the tallest tower:
> "Alasdair" <mail@bobaxter.coo.uk> wrote in message
> news:t6djm3h2ij66d8u
fn25sostoql2nql62nd@
4ax.com...
>
> A web browser is a good start. All the information is available to
> all - you just have to make a tiny effort to read it. It's not
> difficult to compare prices and networks.
True, but it's not always that easy to find all the relevent data in an
easy-to-compare (ie like for like) format.
It is often worth asking as someone might know of some obscure site that
would help, or even have some first hand knowledge that would be of use to
the OP.
After all, if everyone could find out what they needed to know just by using
Google, there would be no use for Usenet...
:-)
--
Regards,
Chris.
(Remove Elvis's shoes to email me)
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| On 20 Dec, 06:51, Usenet User <usenetu...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> Three also offer the same deals on 18 month contracts albeit with a
> charge for the USB dongle.
If you are already a Three customer you get the dongle for free on an
18 month =A315 (3GB) broadband contract. Mind you, I tried it and it was
rubbish - even with 3.5G showing at 4/5 bars I never managed more than
400kbps, and normally less than half of that. Coupled with the
dreadful reliability of Planet 3 this leads me to suspect that the
Three broadband infrastructure is crap.
Ian
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| John Mason 2007-12-20, 10:33 pm |
|
"Ian" <ian.groups@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:4dfd87a9-c346-48ad-ad14- cea49b50319f@w40g200
0hsb.googlegroups.com...
On 20 Dec, 06:51, Usenet User <usenetu...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> Three also offer the same deals on 18 month contracts albeit with a
> charge for the USB dongle.
If you are already a Three customer you get the dongle for free on an
18 month £15 (3GB) broadband contract. Mind you, I tried it and it was
rubbish - even with 3.5G showing at 4/5 bars I never managed more than
400kbps, and normally less than half of that. Coupled with the
dreadful reliability of Planet 3 this leads me to suspect that the
Three broadband infrastructure is crap.
Ian
Bloke at work uses it with no problems at all and gets a solid connetion in
the Blackpool area even supports a VPN connection into the office.
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| Alasdair 2007-12-20, 10:33 pm |
| On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:51:00 -0800 (PST), Usenet User
<usenetuser@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>Three also offer the same deals on 18 month contracts albeit with a
>charge for the USB dongle.
>
>Three also offer the same deal on pay-as-you-go (i.e. without a
>contract) -- just pay for the USB modem up front, and buy 30 days of
>broadband for the same amount as contract users.
>
>Finally if you're already a Three customer you can add the 'broadband'
>add-on to your existing account and use your handset as the modem --
>that way the length of any existing contract you may have stays the
>same.
Please, do any other mobile networks offer a similar service and are
the dongles locked to Three and, if so, are they unlockable like
mobile phones?
--
Alasdair.
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| Chris Blunt 2007-12-21, 4:33 am |
| On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 01:20:25 +0000, Alasdair <mail@bobaxter.coo.uk>
wrote:
>On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:51:00 -0800 (PST), Usenet User
><usenetuser@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
>Please, do any other mobile networks offer a similar service and are
>the dongles locked to Three and, if so, are they unlockable like
>mobile phones?
The Huawei E220, which is the USB dongle that most networks seem to
offer is certainly lockable. I wish I knew how to unlock mine.
Chris
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| On Dec 20, 12:24 am, Alasdair <m...@bobaxter.coo.uk> wrote:
> While passing a "3" shop today, I saw a big advert in the window
> offering mobile broadband (1Gb for =A310 per month, 3Gb for =A315 per
> month). The idea appeals to me when I go to various parts of the
> country but there are negatives. Firstly, you have to take out a
> 2-year contract and I don't know what happens if you go over your
> agreed limit.
You can get a one year contract but you have to pay for the
hardware.
Ten pence per megabyte if you go over the prepaid amount of
data.
Click on "plan detail" on the link below
http://threestore.three.co.uk/broadband/
Seems a bit steep to me (although nowhere near as bad as the orange
mobile office tariff), a heavy user could run up a significant
bill.
Tmobile 3G broadband is slightly more expensive but if you go over
the "fair use" limit in a month their policy is to tell you not to and
reduce your connection speed if you keep doing it.
http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/fairuse/
In my experiance the tmobile 3G is mildly unreliable but I find
internet access out and about with my laptop very usefull so
I put up with it to get important emails. It is no worse than
the amount of fiddling it took to get a 1KB/second connection
using a dialup ISP from a mobile phone.
It works poorly in a building above about the tenth floor, I'm
guessing it receives too many cells.
On a bus in town it sometimes stays connected for twenty
minutes but if it's not connected it usually dosn't connect
in a moving vehicle doing 20-30mph.
Trying to use it on trains dosn't work well.
Seting your device to just try to use GPRS may be
more reliable but lower speed. I'v only reccently started
experimenting with that.
Bob
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| Bob wrote:
> Ten pence per megabyte if you go over the prepaid amount of
> data.
> Click on "plan detail" on the link below
> http://threestore.three.co.uk/broadband/
>
> Seems a bit steep to me (although nowhere near as bad as the orange
> mobile office tariff), a heavy user could run up a significant
> bill.
A VERY significant bill. Working properly, 3's 'turbo' mobile broadband
is supposed to give 2.8Mb/sec so if you used it full tilt, it could
manage over (2.8 / 8) * 60 * 60 * 24 MB/day = 30.24GB/day. Run that for
a month at £100 per GB and you're looking at a bill of over three
thousand pounds, even after allowing for the inclusive allowance.
So anyone who likes peer-peer filesharing would be wise to avoid it!
> Tmobile 3G broadband is slightly more expensive but if you go over
> the "fair use" limit in a month their policy is to tell you not to and
> reduce your connection speed if you keep doing it.
> http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/fairuse/
Ah, but isn't T-Mobile's just 3G speeds, which is far, far slower than
what is possible with the 3 setup (in theory)?
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| Dennis Ferguson 2007-12-25, 12:33 pm |
| On 2007-12-22, Iain <no-one@hairydog.co.uk> wrote:
> Bob wrote:
>
> Ah, but isn't T-Mobile's just 3G speeds, which is far, far slower than
> what is possible with the 3 setup (in theory)?
No, T-Mobile's service is 1.8 Mbps HSDPA, or at least that's what my
phone says it is.
Dennis Ferguson
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| Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>
> No, T-Mobile's service is 1.8 Mbps HSDPA, or at least that's what my
> phone says it is.
Better than I thought, but only a little over half the speed of the 3
offering.
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| Steve Dulieu 2007-12-27, 10:33 am |
|
"Iain" <no-one@hairydog.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1198688359.87687.0@iris.uk.clara.net...
> Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>
>
> Better than I thought, but only a little over half the speed of the 3
> offering.
According to my T-Mobile supplied data modem, T-Mobile's HSDPA operates at
3.6 Mbps, connecting in Chingford and Tottenham...
--
Cheers, Steve.
Change jealous to sad to reply.
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