Best 3g broadband service?

Cyrus

my parents cannot get conventional BB where they live in wexford, i need to check but i think there is 3g coverage. if so what is the best 3g internet deal offered at the moment? looks at first glance as if the vodafone 5gb offering is better than 3's 3gb, would that be correct?

Shredneck

Possibly price wise but they may not have the best coverage....

What part of Wexford is it?

Cyrus

a little place called adamstown, slap bang in the middle

Shredneck

O2 have 2 3G sites covering that area.

Sam Vimes

yeah but its more expensive for less data. the best i can find is €16.52 ex vat for 25MB and 83c a MB after that

here's the main aspects of vodafone'sand 3's:

3:

€39.99 a month

€79 for the data card

€49.49 if you want to get an adpater to put the laptop card in a pc (total for hardware is €129 then)

3.6Mbps if you have full coverage

3GB dl limit

49c a MB once you go over the limit

works on vista

vodafone:

€49 a month

€129 for the usb modem

1.4Mbps if you have full coverage

5GB dl limit

12c a MB once you go over the limit

doesn't work on vista afaik

you just have to decide which of those is most important to you. you can bring them both back within two weeks if you're not happy



edit:3 also has an option where you can get 2GB for €20 a month through a phone. you could get a phone and plug it into the computer for use as a modem but the cheapest phone that does the highg speed data is €199

ablelocks

Commander Vimes wrote:

edit:3 also has an option where you can get 2GB for €20 a month through a phone. you could get a phone and plug it into the computer for use as a modem but the cheapest phone that does the highg speed data is €199

i thought this wasn't possible? I was told in the 3 shop that I could not use the N73 as a modem.

right here's my situation :

in Limerick, currently on dial-up. would like to get broadband for general internet usage - little or no movie or music downloading (can do that at work if required).

What download speeds could be expected by using an n73 as the broadband modem? Is it sufficient for general surfing? I doubt I'd use any more than 2gb in a month.

If this is an option, then I can kill 2 birds with one stone - mobile phone and broadband for €40'ish a month.

culabula

ablelocks wrote:

i thought this wasn't possible? I was told in the 3 shop that I could not use the N73 as a modem.

.

You can: every day I use my 3 SIM with either my N95, v800, 7600 or 6630.

No problem.

culabula

ablelocks wrote:

If this is an option, then I can kill 2 birds with one stone - mobile phone and broadband for €40'ish a month.

Yes, it's great and the best bit is -you can make and take calls while online.

Don't get the N73 though -it's at 'end-of-life' for a start: get the LG chocolate u830 at 199 euro for the HSDPA.

Remember too that you can take the broadband add-on on and off on a monthly basis.

Sam Vimes

ablelocks wrote:

i thought this wasn't possible? I was told in the 3 shop that I could not use the N73 as a modem.

you can

if you're going to go for a phone mostly for bb, i'd recommend the LG u830 too.

there are only 2 phones with HSDPA, which means they can get the full 3.6Mbps. the other phones' maximum speed is 384Kbps. still an alright speed but the u830 is a lot cheaper than the n73 on pre pay and you'd get much faster speeds. also the only other HSDPA phone is a dreaded moto

culabula

Commander Vimes wrote:

you can

if you're going to go for a phone mostly for bb, i'd recommend the LG u830 too.

there are only 2 phones with HSDPA, which means they can get the full 3.6Mbps. the other phones' maximum speed is 384Kbps. still an alright speed but the u830 is a lot cheaper than the n73 on pre pay and you'd get much faster speeds. also the only other HSDPA phone is a dreaded moto

Echo that last sentence: but weren't people posting here that the prepaid flavour of mobile broadband is of the 'close-but-no-cigar' variety? That's all I would worry about.

Sam Vimes

culabula wrote:

Echo that last sentence: but weren't people posting here that the prepaid flavour of mobile broadband is of the 'close-but-no-cigar' variety? That's all I would worry about.

i was never sure exactly what the story was there. i must put some credit on my 3pay sim one of these days and try it out

culabula

Commander Vimes wrote:

i was never sure exactly what the story was there. i must put some credit on my 3pay sim one of these days and try it out

It's possibly sorted now but some people were complaining they were being taken through a proxy. Anyway......God, Corrie's just started.!!!!!....later dude.

legs11

thats all well and good, but go easy with the usage with 3, you might be hit with bills sufficent to buy a small island off the coast of kerry..........;)

culabula

Or just don't go over the 3GB (for the moment) cap. Arf! Arf! Then with the money you've saved you can buy boxed sets of CSI.

Urban Weigl

Commander Vimes wrote:

doesn't work on vista afaik

Vista drivers are now available in the form of a firmware update for the Huawei E220 USB modem, which is what Vodafone uses. They can be downloaded from http://www.mobileconnected.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/E220%20Firmware.zip

Also, Vodafone will be upgrading their network to support 3.6 Mbps shortly. So even though the service is currently advertised as 1.4-1.8 Mbps, the hardware is already capable of the higher speed.

JNive

few corrections on the Vodafone service, as already done so briefly by Urban Weigl.

vodafone:

€49 a month

€129 for the usb modem ( €180 for XU870 PCExpress card with dell, or similar price i believe for the datacard option from Vodafone directly )

1.4Mbps if you have full coverage, many places are already activated and using HSDPA cells -> 3.6Mbps

5GB dl limit

12c a MB once you go over the limit
USB Modem Works on vista with latest firmwares/drivers.
Datacard from Vodafone unsure if it works on vista ( it should and if not, you can use a 3G router that the datcard plugs into )
PCExpress XU870 from Dell Works on Vista

Incidentally, the Vodafone 3G contract entered into via Dell is the Vodafone Unlimited Price plan.

Urban Weigl

I'd go with whomever has better coverage in your area. That's my recommendation in general, though if you have good coverage from both 3 and Vodafone, I'd probably go with Vodafone because of the convenience of the USB modem and better value if you think you're going to use more than 3 GB monthly.

That is interesting about Dell. I thought new customers could no longer avail of the Unlimited price plan, which I am on, so it is interesting to know there is at least one exception to the rule.

trixter

culabula wrote:

You can: every day I use my 3 SIM with either my N95, v800, 7600 or 6630.

No problem.

do you do anything other than browse webpages? What about HTTPS? What about pop3/imap? What about anything else?

The problem I am having is that I can *only* connect to their stupid proxy server which strips javascript, blocks popups (even if I specifically want or need them for a site), molests CSS, and adds links into the page for a 'next page' feature and adds a footer of their own design for everything. It basically means I cant do what I want how I want.

It could be my phone, either a config option (APN settings perhaps) or a limitation on the phone itself when a bluetooth connection is made. Can you share what APN you use and all of that for your connection?

Thanks

godskitchen

I have both the Vodafone and the Three data cards, my advice would be, if you have a choice, go with vodafone everytime! Threes customer service makes me want to kill people.

Also, the word on the street (boards) is that Three are about to come out and beg you for your custom by offering what appear to be silly deals. Might be worth holding out for a while.

The_Hustler

trixter wrote:

do you do anything other than browse webpages? What about HTTPS? What about pop3/imap? What about anything else?

The problem I am having is that I can *only* connect to their stupid proxy server which strips javascript, blocks popups (even if I specifically want or need them for a site), molests CSS, and adds links into the page for a 'next page' feature and adds a footer of their own design for everything. It basically means I cant do what I want how I want.

It could be my phone, either a config option (APN settings perhaps) or a limitation on the phone itself when a bluetooth connection is made. Can you share what APN you use and all of that for your connection?

Thanks

Aren't you on 3pay trixter? 3pay has all of the restrictions and proxy that is happening to you whereas billpay does not use a proxy afaik.

trixter

The_Hustler wrote:

Aren't you on 3pay trixter? 3pay has all of the restrictions and proxy that is happening to you whereas billpay does not use a proxy afaik.

Yes I am, they dont advertise they are any different that I saw however.
I didnt know if that was an APN restriction, and if so if I were to put in the billpay APN it would magically fix itself or not. The APN I have manually put in (only one I could find) was three.co.uk which works, but has that "transparent proxy" associated to it.

It is entirely possibly they do it by IP assignment or whatever to determine if you are restricted or not. I have filed a customer service request to see if there is anything I can do to rectify this situation. The one I filed about dead links on their page was responded to instantly and I even got a phone call to clarify some information. However this one hasnt even been acknowledged as received.

There is no information that I saw on the sticky thread for 3 provisioning information, why I wanted to see what others were using and try some stuff out.

Pings appear to be filtered, traceroute works to what appears to be the border between them and the internet. DNS does return valid information so a DNS tunnel could be used, but that isnt really the solution I would prefer. I may get bored a bit later on today and decide to look a bit deeper into everything. I could write some quick and dirty software to basically give me more of an undertanding of how their network is laid out and what works and what doesnt.

One thing I really am interested in now based on what I have seen so far and experiments I did with nextel 7 years ago is whether or not you can directly talk to other phones. Nextel phones at that time could be 100% controlled (place calls, answer calls, add/edit/view addressbook entries, etc) via tiny UDP packets. With that power available (and libraries and example code from motorola at the time, and only one manufacturer of iDen phones, what nextel uses) you would think that they would have protected it, since they didnt and since it appears that I can merrily go galavanting across the internal three network, it makes me wonder if phones are more vulnerable to attack sine most people have no protections on their phone, but phones are becoming more and more capable all the time.

It also makes me wonder if an ad-hoc network could be made using three as a backbone to connect people who could then share information (and possibly even gateway to a cable modem etc). I also wonder if you have access to this network without paying anything extra for data (my guess is currently yes since you get the 3 portal afaik with every plan).

It could be interesting, and as far as I can see not in any way against their user agreement nor the aw since you arent removing any access controls on that last part. The proxy stuff may be questionable however.

ablelocks

reading the responses to this thread and to the others about 3, I think I'll :

wait for a decent phone with Hsdpa
wait for 3 to sort out their issues
wait for more positive feedback from boards.