"Roger Mills" <watt.tyler@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:78s5amF1n0lo9U1@mid.individual.net...
> 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.
>
>
I've been using 3internet for 5quid month for some time now with a
smartphone as a modem, and it's acceptable most of the time.
The way I look at it is as mobile BB, at dial up prices.

Last week went for the much published 3 dongle of a fiver deal
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...html?t=1703797

Unlocked it using , flash files
http://rapidshare.com/files/235523732/ZTE2.rar.html

and Telstra connection manager, with 3 settings
Now it's unlocked i can experiment with other networks.

I've tried Virgin Mobile's 30p per day internet, which works fine
except Virgins billing computer sometimes forgets 30p per day,
and debts at per mb rate, emptying my credit! ;-(

Now to try some other networks sims

Steve Terry