Thinking of mobile broadband

kingaaa

I'm an o2 customer and they rang me the other day offering me broadband with what they described as "the best modem" for €19.99. I have been thinking about getting it but from who? who does the best deal, has the best coverage and modem? Also, would I be better off using my nokia n95 as a modem and if so, how easy is it to do that?

jor el

The modems are all pretty much the same, so go with the cheapest one.

There are a lot of options, and which one is best is a very subjective topic. O2 have probably the best overall, when you take coverage, non-3G fall back (EDGE still gives around 230k), price and cap into account. Meteor has poor coverage at the moment. Three, well, just don't. Vodafone, more expensive and lower cap, no EDGE.

Unless you need mobility, get real broadband from a fixed wireless, cable or DSL operator, if you at all can. 3G is not broadband, and it never will be.

kingaaa

yeah, its for my laptop - so it has to be mobile.

jor el wrote: »

The modems are all pretty much the same, so go with the cheapest one.

There are a lot of options, and which one is best is a very subjective topic. O2 have probably the best overall, when you take coverage, non-3G fall back (EDGE still gives around 230k), price and cap into account. Meteor has poor coverage at the moment. Three, well, just don't. Vodafone, more expensive and lower cap, no EDGE.

Unless you need mobility, get real broadband from a fixed wireless, cable or DSL operator, if you at all can. 3G is not broadband, and it never will be.

watty

Unless you are using it everywhere/anywhere no.

ANY Internet or Broadband service (including dialup and Mobile) can use a home or Office WiFi so you can use the laptop cordlessly in any room. Is that what you need or do your really need it on a park bench, bus , train etc?

kingaaa

watty wrote: »

Unless you are using it everywhere/anywhere no.

ANY Internet or Broadband service (including dialup and Mobile) can use a home or Office WiFi so you can use the laptop cordlessly in any room. Is that what you need or do your really need it on a park bench, bus , train etc?

Sorry for not being clear enough, its for mobile broadband ,when I'm at home I'm on my home network using wifi

watty

OK, so Portable Internet Then,

Well check out the four mobile carriers websites for coverage in the areas you travel.
Within a week check out all those areas at day time and evening about 3 times.

Then if it is too poor take it back citing no coverage and try the next one.

Meteor has very little 3G/HSPA coverage, mostly GSM/GPRS/EDGE

3 has only 3G/HSPA, and often poor rural coverage. Their coverage maps appear to hugely overstate coverage compared to the other operators.

O2 has GSM/GPRS/EDGE and 3G/HSPA

Vodafone has GSM/GPRS and 3G/HSPA, no EDGE.

GSM family uses 900MHz or 1800MHz or both depending on mast.
3G family uses 2100MHz so may have poorer suburban and does have poorer Rural coverage and much poorer indoor coverage.

However many smaller 1800MHz and 2100MHz cells to give same rural range as 900MHz is really needed as the data capacity on all networks is far to low. The networks are designed for Voice and Data uses a huge amount more.


Voice calls have priority and all capacity on a sector is shared.
Key:

• GSM 14.4K (or 28.8 using two slots= douple cost). Not "always on". Uses Voice call channel and price.
• GPRS runs on GSM and is UP TO 70kbps. But can be only 2kbps. Appears to be always on. Connects on demand.
• EDGE runs on GSM and is UP TO 240kbs. (Though could in theory outperform 3G for capacity, but only "up to" 1.2Mbps.)
  
  
• 3G is about 300Kbps.
• HSDPA, HSUPA and HSPA are all modes with shorter range using more of the 3G capacity running on the 3G air Interface. All can give 1.8Mbps to 21Mbps download speed, depending on mast HW & SW, modem and signal. Upload varies from about 50Kbps on HSDPA to UP TO 21Mbps on HSPA.

I practice if the signal is poor or more people connect the 3G/HSPA can behave very badly.
See here for why 3G is a terrible technology because it uses W-CDMA. Cell breathing is the issue. The charts show a simplified single sector mast. In reality a mast usually has 3 sectors overlapping like 3 petals, to allow the frequencies to be reused on a adjoining cells and increase capacityx3.

kingaaa

how about roaming? can you use these modems abroad in the price plan or are there extra charges?

watty

Serious extra charges. Completly separate to voice roaming. €2,000 bills for a week are typical.

3 did have cheap roaming, but I think are cancelling it.

taung

Three have a free mobile broadband roaming (3 Like Home) service if you roam on one of their sister networks (Sweden, Denmark, UK, Austria, Italy, Australia, Hong Kong).

They had previously stated that this service would be closed at the end of June. But they don't have these expiry dates on their web-site now.

ttm

taung wrote: »

Three have a free mobile broadband roaming (3 Like Home) service if you roam on one of their sister networks (Sweden, Denmark, UK, Austria, Italy, Australia, Hong Kong).

They had previously stated that this service would be closed at the end of June. But they don't have these expiry dates on their web-site now.

There was a least one thread here about 3 changing their minds, extending the roaming offer and not dropping it at the end of June however there is no garantee how long the roaming offer will continue.