Can anyone point me to a short-term provider?

giddyup

Will be back in Ireland for a week in September. Looking to get my hands on a 3G modem to maintain connectivity as I move around. Can anyone recommend a rental place or am I missing another creative solution? Rentaphone-ireland are the only service I could find on a quick search and they are looking for 99 euros which is about double what I think would be reasonable.

jor el

In short, you won't get this. You'll have to buy a modem, and then buy a week or month of PAYG.

Three, Meteor and Vodafone do PAYG midband, but Meteor's coverage is practically non-existent (outside Dublin and Cork), Three has too many subscribers, leaving Vodafone as your only realistic option.

pepperds

Vodafone's PAYG is on a PostPay 12 month contract I believe

Syferus

Three is the only truly pre-paid broadband option - the others are pay as you use on 30 day contracts and have significantly worse bandwidth and value propositions than Three. Jor El's out-of-the-gate dismissal of Three without even knowing what the coverage and user load is like in your prospective area is more than a little hasty, to be honest. It should be your first port of call.

You can use a 'normal' sim card (€10: http://www.three.ie/handsets_new/3-sim-only-3pay-white-3pay.htm and don't be tempted to think the free call credit will cover you - it's not allowed to be used against add-on purchases) if you have a modem already (search eBay and so on, any of the ubiquitous 3G USB modems will work if they're unlocked) and then buy broadband add-ons on their website with your call credit. It breaks down like this: €5 for 500MB for one day, €10 for 2GB for seven days and €25 for 30 days for 10GB.

If you still don't have a modem upon arrival, they offer one for €69 with a sim card: http://www.three.ie/broadband/3pay.htm

watty

PayG wireless Dialup in most areas.

The high cost of line rental means that a high proportion of Mobile customers are fixed Voice or fixed Data users, which the service is not designed for. This means that depend on area the speed and availability is 1/2 to 1/20 of what it is in Countries with competitively priced Fixed Phone and Broadband.

3's Network in some places is so over subscribed you will be disconnected regularly by voice calls or other Data users closer to mast.

Vodafone has more accurate coverage maps, better coverage and better overall network performance.

3 may have a higher Cap, but that simply increases contention and makes the service worse. No 3G service has the capacity for Broadband like Caps.

jor el

Syferus wrote: »

Jor El's out-of-the-gate dismissal of Three without even knowing what the coverage and user load is like in your prospective area is more than a little hasty, to be honest. It should be your first port of call.

I don't dismiss anything out of haste, I dismiss them out of experience and record. Three's record speaks for itself, and they should be the last port of call for anyone looking for mobile Internet access.

That's not saying it definitely won't work, but you'd be better of trying the more reliable services first, before going to the service provider that has more complaints against it than any other.