Mobile Broadband

[John]

Here's a test post from my new toy, which will have some practical uses.

It's a USB Broadband modem that connects to the mobile phone network, so anywhere there's a mobile phone signal I can have a Broadband connection. Not mega-fast (1.8MB I think) but fast enough for most purposes.

We can now demo our website at the club so if there any issues with use of images on the web we can look into that on a digital night.

It seems to work very well, so fingers crossed there's an Orange signal where I want one to be!

[sunsworth]

Hi John, I have one on a contract from 3 that I use when I'm working away from home.

They work well when there's a 3G signal, and that's variable. Coverage seems to be a lot more limited that with normal mobile phones. If there's no 3G signal they drop to a lower speed - and you get a reminder of why you scrapped dial up for broadband!

Be careful you don't exceed your download limit, if you do then the charges are punitive. As for using it abroad, don't even think about it. Even with recent reductions in charges imposed by Ofcom, they are very, very, expensive.

Finally for anyone with a Mac who's thinking of getting one the set up on a Mac isn't as simple as under Windows. You have to set the thing up manually, with Windows it's automatic - or at least that was the case with the 3 one that I have.

[John]

Thanks for the warning on costs.

I installed mine on the laptop just by plugging it in and clicking "install". No set up, no registration as they did all that for me at the Orange shop. On windows it was basically plu in, click connect and away we go.

IE is launched as usual. or any other browser you want to use, so for £15 per month and 3GB of data included it so far seems reasonable. We will see.

I wonder if the system will tell me if I'm about to exceed 3GB? That will be interesting!

[Mike]

Finally for anyone with a Mac who's thinking of getting one the set up on a Mac isn't as simple as under Windows. You have to set the thing up manually, with Windows it's automatic - or at least that was the case with the 3 one that I have.

That surprises me as an Apple Fan Boy! I wonder what makes the 3 mobile broadband different. As a side story, I recently moved to O2 broadband and the windows instructions to get on line included a software install and all sorts of messing about, in fact they had two or three pages of instructions to get online. When it came to the mac instructions they felt the need to make it look like a decent paragraph by telling you which coloured cables to put into which coloured slots on the wireless box. The jist of the mac instructions was, plug it all in, turn it on, wait for the green lights to be steady, then open your browser and you are away. . . . but that just sounds too simplistic for instruction books!

In response to the limits question by John, I think they send you an email, but check! I have an online tracker for my phone - at the moment (since the 11 July 2008 I have used approximately 50,000KB (50MB?) every seven days - it was more like 75,000KB in the first week or so. The phone claims to be unlimited based on a fair usage policy. I don't think I will be exceeding a fair usage. As it is only used on the bus to and from work every day.

[sunsworth]

Mike, the modem must have some flash memory, when you load it in Windows there's an autorun component that guides you through the process. With the Mac you need to download the drivers (did someone mention chicken and egg?), install them, and then set up the network connection.

I bought my modem about 9 months ago, things may have changed since then.

Regarding the Mac, I bought a 24" iMac last week. My only regret is that I didn't buy one sooner. I've had a Macbook for a year or two, so already had all the software I needed.

[Mike]

They are nice! I have a 20" iMac with the aluminium and black back, as you can imagine I am very happy. The power of the machine is very impressive.

[markculshaw]

most drivers for mobile broadband dongles can be found via the manufacturers website!

or if you have a 3g enabled phone you could just use your mobile phone as the modem, and connect via bluetooth
it took me 20 seconds to set up on my macbook pro laptop the other day!

orange have a 1gb per month data bundle for £5 per month, with the first 2 months free!

[oakeycoke]

Hi,

Not quite mobile broadband, but if you are with BT and join BT FON, that means you share part of your wireless broadband signal, but you can also access the internet where there is a BT FON or Openzone site available.

So whilst in Scotland last week where there wasn't an O2 signal for my mobile I was able to park outside someone's house who was also on BT FON and access the internet for free. Basically your BT broadband hub sends out two wireless signals one for yourself and one for others. They are separate security wise and the 'others or public' one is restricted in bandwith, so as not to slow the home system down. In Scotland the internet and emails loaded as quickly as at home.

Unfortunately there isn't a FON site near enough to the club for a wireless signal yet.

I get 350 minutes access a month for free.

https://www.beta.bt.com/apps/openwifi/s ... tsBTFon.do gives details and there are sites abroad.

Phil