In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Jim Kewley <JKewley@noanswer.com> wrote:

> Dunno how many here are internet nerds, like me. In my attempts to
> maintain a web connection on our travels with the van, I bought a 3
> mobile PAYG dongle internet connection thingy. Big mistake.
>
> 3 mobile appears to offer the cheapest way of getting on the web
> whilst travelling, consequently I bought one of their dongles. Sadly
> 3 mobile merely serves to emphasise the truth of ' you get what you
> pay for '. Despite the apparent value in it's bandwidth offering the
> truth is most of the time the connection is so slow and unreliable,
> with frequent dropped lines, that anybody would be hard pressed to
> take advantage of the bandwidth available.
>
> Finally, after my umpteenth dropped/slow connection, I gave up with 3
> and decided to try an O2 version of a similar PAYG dongle set up. O2
> is slightly more expensive than 3 but so far I've found it's
> connections to be consistently far better and so much more reliable
> than 3 mobile.
> Sent from the Caravan Club, Wirral Country Park site, via my O2 PAYG
> connection. O2 is retaining a steady 3G connection at 3.6 gigs,
> checking the 3 mobile dongle it seems to be struggling to find a GPRS
> connection at 56 mbs.
>
> HTH for anybody interested.

I too bought a '3' dongle, and have been very disappointed with its
performance. I don't think I've *ever* achieved download speeds in excess of
1Mbps, and it's often not much better than dial-up speeds. In a recent
caravan trip to the New Forest I couldn't make the bl**dy thing work at at,
despite having had some sort of connection on the same site a few weeks
earlier - and despite hoisting the dongle high up outside the caravan on the
end of a USB extension lead.

The version I bought came bundled with 12G of usage - which expires after 12
months - and further top ups cost £10 for 1G or 1 month - whichever occurs
first. [There's no way I'm going to use 12G in 12 months because my use is
only occasional, when away from home - but it was a reasonably good deal at
the time].

One of the problems with the '3' setup (apart from it not working!) is that
it's time limited. So, for example, if you want to use it on a short caravan
trip, you have to buy a month's worth, and if you go on another trip (say) 6
weeks later, you have to buy another month's worth even if you've only used
a fraction of the previous month's bandwidth.

I see that Vodaphone are now offering a PAYG BB dongle for £39 - including a
bundled 1G of usage. AIUI - unlike the equivalent '3' offereng - this
doesn't time out, so you don't have to top it up until you actually run out
of bandwidth. Top-ups appear to cost £15 per 1G (as opposed to 3's £10) but,
if they don't expire after one month, may represent better value for
occasional users.

When my year's worth of '3' expires, I shall be very tempted to ditch '3'
and try Vodaphone instead - particularly if user reports in the meantime are
favourable.

Anyone got any experience of Vodaphone mobile broadband?

[I'm cross-posting this to uk.telecom.broadband and uk.telecom.mobile
because I think it's of wider interest than just the caravanning fraternity]
--
Cheers,
Roger
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