Uk visits

cormie

Hi,
I go to the UK every so often, could be twice a month, could be once every 4 months. I'm just finished my contract with Three Broadband, the €20 per month 10GB plan and it was terrible. I've now got a €7.50 250mb add on with o2 as part of my bill pay, which is fine for use here, I've only used a few MB so far this month, but if I use this in the UK, it'll cost me €8 per mb or something crazy.

I still have the three USB modem so I was thinking if I could get a pre pay (or three pay) sim and just use the data off that while I'm in the UK because as far as I know, it's the same cost whether I'm in Ireland, the UK or any other Three country.

Would anyone know the best option for me in this case? I think Three pay because the credit would last until I use it up (or 18 months or whatever length credit lasts) and the prices would be just regular data prices, whatever they are.

If anyone knows of a better option, please let me know

Jonathan

cormie wrote: »

Would anyone know the best option for me in this case? I think Three pay because the credit would last until I use it up (or 18 months or whatever length credit lasts) and the prices would be just regular data prices, whatever they are.:)

Buy an irish 3pay simcard and use their prepay rates.

Broadband Daily - 1 day - €5 - [500MB]
Broadband Weekly - 7 days - €10 - [2GB]
Broadband Monthly - 30 days - €25 [10GB]

cormie

Thanks for the reply. Are they the only options with 3? Is there not just a 5mb etc pack you can buy and use up whenever? What's this 99c per day thing with Vodaphone? Would it still be 99c to use in the UK?

jor el

I think you can use a 3Pay SIM and pay per MB of data. Rate is something like 49c per MB. If you're just doing a quick email check, this might be worth considering.

You'd want to check that the same price applies for roaming though. Presumably "3 Like Home" applies, as long as you connect with 3UK.

cormie

Would it be better to get a 99c a day UK vodafone sim card I wonder and just use it to connect when I'd be there throughout the year? hmm..

cormie

http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Portal/appmanager/vodafone/wrp?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=template10&pageID=MI_0036

That looks like the best option I think? £1 a day, I can just buy a UK prepay sim card, stick it in my mobile and connect that way I hope, put £10 credit on it and I'll have 15MB of use each day at just £1.

Anyone have any idea how long the credit on a VodaFone UK pre pay sim will last?

Jonathan

cormie wrote: »

Anyone have any idea how long the credit on a VodaFone UK pre pay sim will last?

Did you read Vodafone uk's T&C's first before asking?

Also make sure that the vodafone access is FULL INTERNET ACCESS. Access to the vodafone live portal is fúck all use for checking emails.

cormie

if you choose not to use the Service for a period of 180 days (‘Use of this service’ means (i) making any chargeable outbound calls (excluding calls to 191, see your price plan for charges). (ii) any topping up of your account);

So looks like as long as you use it once every 179 days, the credit will never expire...

It mentions on the page I linked to above about accessing the net from a laptop, surely it couldn't be restricted on a laptop to Vodafone live, could it?

Jonathan

Vodafone site wrote:

Neither our day rate nor monthly pack can be used for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services or Peer-to-Peer services.

This implies that they do block ports.. you just have to hope that they dont block ports 25, 110, 143 (smtp, pop and imap ports respectively) and their encrypted counterparts :pac:

cormie

Hmm, hopefully not

I see you can order a free sim on the net, I wont get it in time so I just hope they don't charge extra in the shops for it

foggy_lad

the three network is probably your best option depending on how much you will be using in the uk as vodafone may not work if they block ports because they do not want people using it with their laptops, but three's offering is for using with pc or laptop

cormie

In the UK now, bought a vodafone sim card, tried it, it connected to the net ok, said poker.ie was restricted, loaded up MSN, then a few seconds later, msn wouldn't work and nothing else would load either :mad:

Wasn't in the mood to suss it out, so I'm on WIFI now. The vodafone one would be ideal if it worked properly because it's only £1 every time I use it, so if I'm in the UK for 6 days in a year, it's only £6 for the whole year and that gives 90mb allowance too.

Jonathan

cormie wrote: »

In the UK now, bought a vodafone sim card, tried it, it connected to the net ok, said poker.ie was restricted, loaded up MSN, then a few seconds later, msn wouldn't work and nothing else would load either :mad:

Wasn't in the mood to suss it out, so I'm on WIFI now. The vodafone one would be ideal if it worked properly because it's only £1 every time I use it, so if I'm in the UK for 6 days in a year, it's only £6 for the whole year and that gives 90mb allowance too.

Thats all well and good with regards to the price, but not much use if you cant access the web.. Just go with 3pay..

cormie

Aha, think I figured out why I couldn't connect to any site last night, I ran out of credit:o

So I just bought £5, hopefully it's only going to use £1 for the first 15mb so. Is there any way to monitor how many MB have been sent received? Is it in the Network Connection > Sony Ericsson/Local Area Connection 4 (as it is on my computer > Status > Activity and when it gets to 15,000 total sent and received, that's the 15MB?

Just have to be careful because after the 1st 15MB, it's £2 per MB.

Jonathan

cormie wrote: »

Aha, think I figured out why I couldn't connect to any site last night, I ran out of credit:o

So I just bought £5, hopefully it's only going to use £1 for the first 15mb so. Is there any way to monitor how many MB have been sent received? Is it in the Network Connection > Sony Ericsson/Local Area Connection 4 (as it is on my computer > Status > Activity and when it gets to 15,000 total sent and received, that's the 15MB?

Just have to be careful because after the 1st 15MB, it's £2 per MB.

No. You have 1MB (megabytes) where as that meter is in bytes.

cormie

Ok, so 150,000 bits would be 15MB yeah?

Now I wonder is there a way to use this sim card in my Huawei modem I got from Three so I don't always have to be switching sim cards and not being able to use my phone when I'm online with this here

godskitchen

I am over and back at least once a month.

I got a 3pay sim here and top up as needed. Was looking at getting a UK 3pay sim but their offer is not as good.

In the uk its £25/7GB/30 days.............here it is E25/10GB/30 days, so its cheaper for more here.

Being Three you can use it in both countries without a problem.

I was one of the first to complain about Three on this forum, long beofre the Mega thread, if you do a search of my posts you will see.

While nothing has improved here in terms of broadband on Three, I have found the speed and service in the UK to be excellent! I guess its because a lot of the Uk can get fixed line BB. This has been my experience through out the UK not just in one area.

cormie

Yeah, when I have used Three in the UK, it's been much better than here, but that's still €300 I'd have to pay a year compared to just paying £1 a day for any day I'm over there with vodafone. I very rarely used Three when I was with them for the year so paying the €20 per month I was paying was far too much to be paying for my usage. Now I'm with o2, 250MB a month for €7.50. I've used maybe 5mb this month so my usage is very low. If three did something similar, 250MB usable in the UK or IRE for €5 and no time limit or something it would be ideal.

Just having a look at my o2 bill online and I don't seem to have been charged for when I connected in the UK with my laptop through the o2 sim (when the vodafone one wouldn't work). I was only on it for a few seconds but I opened about 3 pages so it definitely used data. Imagine it was included in the 250MB all along :eek:

Jonathan

Broadband Daily - 1 day - €5 - [500MB]

This goes by calendar day rather than for 24 hours. Sign up at 00:01 and get it for 2 days..

You say you are only in the uk about 18 times a year.. Thats still only €90. Still much cheaper than £5 a pop wifi hotspots.

cormie

That would definitely be worth it if I was going to be doing some big downloading in the day, but for just checking emails and the likes, I think the Vodafone one will do, £1 a day compared to £5. It'd be a pain to be on Three for any major downloads anyway

Ah-Watch

cormie wrote: »

Ok, so 150,000 bits would be 15MB yeah?

Now I wonder is there a way to use this sim card in my Huawei modem I got from Three so I don't always have to be switching sim cards and not being able to use my phone when I'm online with this here

http://www.nextgenserver.com/broadband_dongle_unlock.htm

cormie

Thanks for that I actually have one of these things:



So I'm just waiting to see, when I get my vodafone sim card, if it will work with that. The usb thing was a bit of a pain to have hanging out of the laptop anyway, so if the card works, it'll be good