On Fri, 6 Jun 2008 18:15:30 +0100, "tims next home"
<tims_new_home@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>The one in McDs was "the Cloud", and I now see from their website that it's
>free (you are presented with a login screen but you make up an account name
>or something) so it's not surprising that it's not available away from the
>store.
>
>I've been back to the Openzone website and discovered how to get the
>provider's details. The four hotspots in the shopping centre are all "The
>cloud" and the one that belongs to BT is on an Industrial site 4 times a far
>away as McDs is. However, the one thing that is weird is that it's at the
>back of my apartment and the signal is strongest in the front.
The joys of reflected (if that's the right word) radio signals!
>Anyway, I'll just have to wander in that direction and see if it gets easier
>to connect to. I really do hope that I can get this to work, all the other
>alternatives require a 12, 18 or 24 month contract which IMHO is utterly
>ridiculous.
I'm sure there are 'mobile broadband' deals out there which work on a
30-day rolling contract.
<rummages>
Three* = £15 per 30 days (3Gb) on Pay As You Go
<http://www.three.co.uk/personal/products_services_/mobile_broadband_/detail.omp>
Vodafone = £20 per 30 days (3Gb) (rolling 30 day contract?)
<http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/mobile-broadband/mobilebroadband/&planDuration=30>
o2 = £20 per month (not sure of the usage) (glue on to contract or
exising PaYG - T&C's are at bottom of the page + gives use of WiFi
hotspots too, it implies)
<http://shop.o2.co.uk/promo/o2broadbandhub>
T-Mobile 'up to £4 a day' (If it's like their other 'don't pay for
data ahead' plans then you get charged a certain percentage of the £4
for every bit of data you use, but when you've used that up the entire
data package cannot add up to more than £4 a day, so if you didn't use
it one day then you don't get charged for it, and if you only use it
very little one day the nyou won't pay the full £4 that day - check
with your local shoppe for details as they'll know better than I!)
<http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/mobile-broadband/data-plans/pay-as-you-go/>
So there you go - other options without having to use WiFi!
And, another option: If you know that a neighbour has WiFi within
range and has it on all the time (and has unlimited bandwidth to use!)
then why not throw five or ten quid to them every month so they can
share their WiFi key with you - no contract there, but might not be
super reliable)
* My brother uses the Three option and hasn't had any problems. I
suppose it all depends on which provider you know has good 3G coverage
inside your place. Remember that the traffic that goes from the
mobile phone cell/tower has limited bandwidth and that's shared with
things like SMS and phone calls so it might be a bit slow at time but
rather reasonable at others. A friend who was in hospital for a while
upped his T-Mobile web'n'walk use to the top tier on their contract
when he was in hospital and quite happily played World of Warcraft for
a few months while he was recovering on his laptop with a mobile phone
on the end of a USB cable. Obviously the ping reply might have been a
bit high, but it's better than watching daytime TV!
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