Mobile Broadband?

[Parapunter]

I've got Virgin broadband, signed up when it was NTL. All sorts of problems in the early days, but ticks along now. I pay £25/month and I've noticed I can get a just as good service (allegedly) off )2 for a tenner a month using wifi & a USB dongle.

On the face of it, this seems very tempting and so I'm very tempted. I suppose I could always threaten Virgin with excommunication and see what they say, but any tales good or bad of such services? I mean £180 in per annum is worth having I would guess.

[Jofm5]

As I write this I am on said USB donlge provided by three (3).

As my mobile phone is 3, they did a promotion not so long ago whereby they offered the dongle to existing subscribers at half price line rental - so for my dongle I pay £7.50 a month with a 3gb limit on usage - there were higher packages available up to 20gb per month for £15gb (half price).

It all depends where you are as to what speed you will get, for true broadband speeds you need to be in an area that supports HSDPA (Known as 3.5g) which is most well populated areas.

Whilst it will never match the capabilities of true broadband the 3mbps that I am achieving is way more than good enough for your average usage. However they have quite high latency's so its not brilliant for online gaming if you ever do that.

I personally have this as a backup to an broadband internet connection as my line of work requires me to be connected on the move and at home. I have just moved so are using it till BT get their rear ends into gear and activate broadband on my telephone line.

What I would suggest is looking to replace virgin altogether. My personal experience when I lived in docklands was that to replace the tv service alone with SKY+ HD worked out around £1 less per month for the full package including sport and movies - way more channels of junk for less money.

Okay you will have to pay for a BT line if you dont already have one but you can get the basic broadband for free and upgraded packages quite cheaply.

If however you want to be able to have broadband on the move then the dongle is the way to go - it is also great if your not a high usage internet user. Dont forget if you want to go this route that if you go sign up at the carphone warehouse or curry's for an 18 month contract they will chuck in a basic laptop for free as sweetner.

If you have any specific queries feel free to ask cause as I said I am on one right now.

Cheers

[Forkandles]

It's okay if you have no other choice. Moved into a rented house in December and will be moving abroad in April, so didn't want a 12 month contract.
I'm on 3 as well and it's been fine. As said above, as long as you aren't a gamer, it'll be fine if the signal is strong enough and 3GB a month for £15 is all you'll need as long as you aren't downloading films and the like.

[stevef]

I've had some appalling download speeds with 3G although it has improved recently. Programme downloads/Windows updates can take ages or sometimes aren't even worth considering. For example, I needed an SD card software update for my Line 6 Spider Jam amplifier and it would have taken the best part of three hours (assuming it didn't drop off line, as sometimes happens). A friend downloaded it for me on his PC in about thirty minutes.
As soon as my contract expires, I'll be ditching it.
It does its job as a travelling laptop connection, I suppose. I can't recommend it for desktop use.

[Jofm5]

There is a big difference between 3g and HSDPA (3.5g). 3G limits you at best to around 360kbps whereas HSDPA is around 3.5mbps.

If your in a rural area then you may be limited to a 3g connecton so you wont get a decent throughput. If you are in a 3.5g area (most cell providers will have a post code check) you will be able to achieve proper broadband speeds.

Another issue is contention, because it is a shared radio frequency not a dedicated set of wires the more people using it the slower it will be for everyone. So I would imagine around densley populated areas the chances of more people using it are higher and they all have to share the bandwidth pie.

I travel alot with my laptop and broadband across the UK and most places (I cant recall one that was not specifically) are 3.5g

[Parapunter]

SSonds like it might be a goer. As for contention, well as soon as the teenager next door starts downloadng huge quantities of porn & music & illegal movies, well, I just go and read a book...:uhoh:

[call100]

Hi £25 a month is the 10Mb package I presume. It has actually dropped to £20 Per month. I get it for £16 per month....If you are out of contract (Over 12months), which you will be if you signed up with NTL (as I did), then phone retentions (150 from VM phone or 0800 298 5770 )and tell them that Sky are offering you a better deal.....See what they will discount you to. I do this every year at the end of each discount. You also get £1 off for going paperless on your bill.
Give it a go...What have you to lose....Don't be wishy washy though....and be very nice.:ok:

[John Marsh]

I use 3 mobile broadband when the wired alternative goes AWOL.

Speed on 3 varies between dial-up and near-wired-broadband speed. As a guide, the current wired broadband speeds are 872Kbps download, 187Kbps upload.

I have logged 3 speeds of 656Kbps download, 86Kbps upload.

For some reason, the 3 signal strength varies a lot. Four bars can change to 0 and connection loss. I do get HSDPA, but that frequently changes to '3G', without any apparent reason (e.g. weak signal?)

Re. contention - as 3 goes via mobile phone masts, do phone users affect 3 broadband?

[Jofm5]

I have logged 3 speeds of 656Kbps download, 86Kbps upload.


The three software will vary your connection based upon your usage, so when browsing web pages your not really requiring the full bandwidth so it will revert to 3g.

Your highest download speed seems low - mine has peaked today at 3584kbps download.

a good place to test any speeds is Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test (http://www.speedtest.net/)

I ran this yesterday and was getting 2mbps download 256k up.

[John Marsh]

Jofm5 - thanks for that.:ok: It's quite a clever system.