dongle for laptop internet (1 Viewer)

[Nobody]

need a internet connection whilst holiday in scotland for my lap top any suggestions tariff where to buy good reception any help on this topic

 

[vindiboy]

I have a Three pay and go Dongle and it works fine, never tried it in Scotland but can't see any reason why it should not work there subject to connectivity of course, The Dongle costs about £25 to buy currently and can be topped up at £10 £ 15 and £25 . top ups last for thirty days and then die, good thing about 3 Dongles is that you can let them die for up to a year and just top up as required. The three is the best Dongle on offer at the moment, we have just bought a second lap top for my wife and have been shopping around for another Dongle for it and have found three to be the best value we can find currently in Southampton.£15 top up gives you 3 gig of use .:thumb::thumb::thumb:

 

[hilldweller]

need a internet connection whilst holiday in scotland for my lap top any suggestions tariff where to buy good reception any help on this topic

Don't expect too much - Scotland can be *very* patchy with one supplier working in one area and another in another. It's a *big* place will loads of hills and small population.

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[GJH]

One of the problems is that deals can change so rapidly so what might be the "best" company this week may be overtaken next week. It's very difficult at the moment to find non-expiring deals, for example.

Coverage maps seem to be a feature of all provider web sites so if there are particular "must have" areas then it is worth checking those.

The subject has been discussed a fair bit in the past so it may be worth doing a search to see what the experience of others has been previously.

Graham

 

[BGDwth]

I have a Three Dongle and it is patchy but within a mile you can usually get reception so it's just a case of finding a good spot.

Got mine off eBay cheaply but make sure you get the appropriate sim card with it because otherwise the general phone one will eat your pay as you go 10/15/20 extremely quickly. Link Removed one will no doubt be gone by the time you see but currently on £10 with sim.

Also on the Three site you can type in a postcode or area and they give an indication of reception quality.

Lastly if you use Google there's a lot of webpages out there that suggest that you can use your mobile as a modem for your laptops, never looked into it myself (but I have a 3 smartphone with an 'unlimited' ("reasonable use") allowance).

 

[GJH]

Yes, some mobiles are capable of being used as modems - but you need a 3G capable one to get the dongle speeds. My Vodafone mobile can be used as a modem at a charge of 50p per day. It connects to the netbook via either cable (which came with the phone) or Bluetooth.

Graham

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[WynandJean]

Another consideration would be an unlocked dongle. This means you can use sim cards from any provider and take advantage of any situation (e.g. on the continent). I got mine from:

Link Removed

Regards
Wyn

 

[GregM]

i bought my 3 dongle from tesco, at the time it was on offer for £29.99 with 3GB/3 month usage, it is currently online Link Removed for £39.99

I've not used it in Scotland though so can't help you with that point.

 

[camcondor]

You might want to look at providers other than 3 of course - they certainly are not the only players out there, although all the posts so far have been pretty exclusively about them!!!

I travel quite a bit, countrywide, and have found Vodafone to provide the best overall coverage. Where I am at present in Norfolk, I think the coverage is even worse than Scotland if that's possible, and only Vodafone manages to get a semblance of signal here, although only on GPRS in most of the county. I've got an unlimited business package with Vodafone which is quite expensive at around £20 a month, but it serves me well and is quite stable on Win XP, Vista and Apple Macs. Not used it on Win 7 yet.

I also have a T-Mobile dongle which is totally and utterly useless in Norfolk, but gets good 3G speeds in some other areas, and I've found the best option (maybe not suitable if you are on a very restrcited budget) is to have two dongles from different providers so that one of the two is likely to give some sort of usable signal.

Best thing to do is check the providers coverage maps carefully, but be aware that they don't guarantee coverage, even if the map shows it as covered. Also decide if its worth getting a contract dongle or PAYG - some contracts give excellent usage if you use a lot of download capacity but very inexpensive PAYG rates or contracts are likely to "cap" your usage or call it "fair use" restriction. I have a company so don't mind the relatively high cost of the business rathe Vodafone dongle I use as its mostly used in the course of my business- the tax man would otherwise just get more money!!!!!

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[barbt]

We've used 3 and also BT in the highlands with very little problems at all - you sometimes have to move half a mile or so but it's pretty good.

 

[G2EWS]

I have a 3 mi fi modem.

So basically I can have it switched on in the RV and we can all log on just like being at home with a wi fi modem. Had the dongle but was always frustrated with it, the laptop had to be in the right place, at least with this you can put the modem where you want ie where you get a good signal. When I bought the modem I just took the sim card out of the dongle and put it in the modem.

http://www.pocket-lint.com/review/4737/3-mifi-huawei-e5830-review

Think I paid about £50 for it and my contract with 3 is for 5 or 7 gb? and I pay £7.50 per month. Luckily I bought it on a special price and it stays at that!

Not sure about Scotland, as said you need to look to see what works. Each of the providers has coverage maps if you look on their web sites.

Best regards

Chris

 

[Dalek]

We bought a Vodaphone one for £25 and it came with £15 credit

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[Mags52]

Scotland

Hi there, We live in Scotland and a lot depends on where you intend to travel. Around the bigger towns and cities you can get excellent coverage from a 3g dongle but once out in the wilds it's a lot more patchy. I have an O2 dongle that I bought for £19.99. I chose it because I can buy 1/7/30 day access for £2/£7/£15. If out of the 3g network area it connects using slower mobile access - and it can be very slow.
I usually mix the dongle with finding MacDonalds for free wifi access.
hope that helps
Mags

 

[pappajohn]

best solution is visit the network providers websites and do a search on their coverage....

then buy an appropriate 3G/HSDPA sim.

ebay currently have Vodafone 3G sims with no expiry on the preinstalled £15 / 1Gb credit...price, around £7.50...thats just half the credit allowance already on the sim.

 

[mavisangelica]

I bought a T Mobile one from the Carphone Warehouse just before christmas. It is a pay as you go. It came with £10 on it and when you first logged on you got free continuous days (think it was 30 days.) The pay as you go is £2 per day (24 hours) or you can also select 7 days or 30 days. If you don't use it, you have up to 180 days before everything expires.

I bought mine specifically to keep my 15 year old happy in the caravan - which it did over New Year (he was on the usual teenage websites) without a maximum download. We hadn't used it until yesterday but it let me use it (was getting worried it may have expired).

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[Mastodon]

Using an o2 pay as you go - £10 from o2 and pretty good coverage. £2 a day / £7 a week or £15 a month. Also works in Europe @ £6 a Gb

 

[Minxy]

Having just come back from 2 weeks in Scotland including Skye and the isles of Harris & Lewis, I can confirm that the '3' connectivity is patchy ... and that's generous! When you do get it though the speed is fairly good.

On Harris & Lewis the connectivity was non-existent except at the ports, on Skye it wasn't much better, and on the Scottish mainland it was a bit hit and miss depending on where we were but we didn't go higher than the crossing to Skye so not that far up in reality. Fortunately I only wanted to be on line occasionally so it wasn't a major problem if I couldn't connect.

 

[wasp]

Hi Sylv has just bought a O2 dongle I am using it on the lappy at the mo it is £15.00 for a month on PAYG and 3 gb it does seem a bit slow but it is workin, I`m in Basildon working so I nicked it off her for 3 days whilst am down here:thumb::thumb::thumb:

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[Ferend]

Using an o2 pay as you go - £10 from o2 and pretty good coverage. £2 a day / £7 a week or £15 a month. Also works in Europe @ £6 a Gb

According to the O2 website the PAYG dongle can't be used abroad, I'd be interested to know if you have proved otherwise and can verify the £6/Gb charge, which seems exceptionally good.