Broadband Without Contract?

ray giraffe

Hi I am in a house share where nobody wants to sign a contract for broadband.

I know about the dongles (Meteor, Three etc.) but I think you can't have more than 1 person online at a time.

Do we have to get 4 dongles for the 4 of us, or is there anything else we can go for? Dublin 14

[The landlord is not interested in signing a contract either]

okedoke

You can get a wireless router you plug the dongle into.

okedoke

ray giraffe

okedoke wrote: »

You can get a wireless router you plug the dongle into.

okedoke

Thanks okedoke! How much for this wireless router? I'm guessing not any wireless router will do!

okedoke

I think this one would work - but not sure €57

http://www.dabs.ie/products/zoom-3g-wireless-n-desk-top-router-65T1.html

ray giraffe

okedoke wrote: »

I think this one would work - but not sure €57

http://www.dabs.ie/products/zoom-3g-wireless-n-desk-top-router-65T1.html

Can anyone confirm this, or add any more suggestions?

bloomfield

You could take a look at the MeFi from Three. No experience of it myself, but it claims to support up to five users.

http://three.ie/products_services/broadband/mifi.htm

watty

The MiFi / MeFi etc is a travel WiFi adaptor. See these instead:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055361790
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055506944

You can't get Broadband without a Contract. The little "wireless" USB "dongles" are piggybacking on the Mobile phone network. With 3 or 4 people you could be getting "dialup speed". It can even refuse to connect, drop connections and run at dialup to ISDN speeds with one user as it is NOT and never will be Broadband.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055442502

O2, Meteor, 3 and Vodafone have 3G Mobile phone Network Licences. They are advertising it as Mobile Broadband rather than Mobile Internet due to ineptness of Consumer & Telecomms enforcement. The up to 7.2Mbps (or even fantasy 42Mbps) is not a user speed, unlike Cable, Fixed Wireless or DSL (phone line). It's a shared system speed. Usually the mast area is split in three, like pizza slices (though they overlap along the boundary). Each area has a peak system speed. That applies ONLY near the mast. At outer edge its 120kbps before sharing. The speed/capacity is shared. Thus if 4 people are at the 1/4 of distance from Mast to edge of cell, the system speed might be 2Mbps. But if they are simultaneously connected/ downloading (email, webpage not just files) they only get 0.4Mbps each.
It's worse than that though. If 5 or 10 people are in the area the speed can slow as if 10 to 20 are using it as each user looks like noise to the others (W-CDMA). Because of that the cell area shrinks as people connect and so those in outer 1/4 to 1/3rd will be disconnected. WiMax and LTE overcome the CDMA problem.

You can't get actual Broadband without a contract. However if you all club together and pay in to pot or ISP for a year then you can cancel any time.

Mobile is Midband. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1147

Dotto

First of all in the last 3 years I have had 4 broadband connections.dublin-clearwire not good not good.donegal vodafone dongle-even worse and the customer service was terrible too.Eircom with landline good, consistent but the biscuit is taken with 3 mobile.Since i moved house Ive been waiting for eircom to install a landline again in my home and the area is not primed yet for broadband so i decided to try 3 mobile with little to no expectations as i tried it before just down the road in my old house and couldnt get a reception.well was i shocked I'm hitting 3.5-5 mb consistently way better than eircom.I use this on a lan for xbox live and can play heavy traffic games like halo3,mw2 with no lag and surf the web at the same time no bother.its also 19.99 per month and that won't change.All I have to do is watch the 15gb usage and unlike vodafone it counts down instead of up so you can easily track what you have left.btw using xbox live doesnt have heavy usage 3-4 hours gaming uses about 35-50mb.Anyway as said above you can get a wireless router so that you only have one dongle but someone will have to sign the contract.I'd highly recommend checking your area for 3 mobile coverage but as im in the middle of nowhere you should be ok.If you don't get good coverage you can cancel within 14 days no charges.oh and if you sign 18 month contract yout modem free otherwise its 49.99 or something like that.Search around take them all and try them all for free then make your choice:}:)

watty

Since every mast is different, you can good or bad experience on any Mobile operator.

The "no lag" is nonsense as at best Mobile is x5 the ping of Real broadband. Can be x10 latency of real Broadband.

Don't tell anyone where you live as your connection will become bad if only 4 or 5 heavy users added where you live. Obviously, Dotto, you are the only regular user on your sector.

Generally, Nationally on average, 3 is over subscribed. Also they block ports and use shared IP so you are blocked from many applications and sites.
See http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055115306
and also http://www.wattystuff.net/ NBS and 3 Ireland sidebar

You have only had ONE broadband connection Dotto. Clearwire, 3, and Vodafone are not Broadband. You may have been far from exchange on Eircom or on old ADSL rather than ADSL2+ exchange.

The price of 3 is likely to change and Cap also (it's already reduced to 10GByte for PaYG, non-contract).

Cabaal

Dotto wrote: »

so i decided to try 3 mobile with little to no expectations as i tried it before just down the road in my old house and couldnt get a reception.well was i shocked I'm hitting 3.5-5 mb consistently way better than eircom.I use this on a lan for xbox live and can play heavy traffic games like halo3,mw2 with no lag and surf the web at the same time no bother.its also 19.99 per month and that won't change.All I have to do is watch the 15gb usage and unlike vodafone it counts down instead of up so you can easily track what you have left.btw using xbox live doesnt have heavy usage 3-4 hours gaming uses about 35-50mb.Anyway as said above you can get a wireless router so that you only have one dongle but someone will have to sign the contract.I'd highly recommend checking your area for 3 mobile coverage but as im in the middle of nowhere you should be ok.If you don't get good coverage you can cancel within 14 days no charges.oh and if you sign 18 month contract yout modem free otherwise its 49.99 or something like that.Search around take them all and try them all for free then make your choice:}:)

I'd advise anyone reading this to take it with a pinch of salt, so called "Mobile Broadband" solutions are not actually Broadband and as such are unsuitable for such uses as on-line gaming or VoIP.

Signal varys ALOT and whilst it may work ok for some people it can be unusable for many many others which we've seen on this forum.

Finally, Dotto in future please use paragraphs in your posts in future as otherwise it makes them very hard to read.

jor el

Dotto wrote: »

.All I have to do is watch the 15gb usage

Your post is practically unreadable, but this bit does stand out. Three's current cap is 10GB a month, not 15GB.

Also, if you were a Three customer your IP would match up, but it doesn't, so I tend not to believe a word you've said.

colinod0806

Dotto wrote: »

First of all in the last 3 years I have had 4 broadband connections.dublin-clearwire not good not good.donegal vodafone dongle-even worse and the customer service was terrible too.Eircom with landline good, consistent but the biscuit is taken with 3 mobile.Since i moved house Ive been waiting for eircom to install a landline again in my home and the area is not primed yet for broadband so i decided to try 3 mobile with little to no expectations as i tried it before just down the road in my old house and couldnt get a reception.well was i shocked I'm hitting 3.5-5 mb consistently way better than eircom.I use this on a lan for xbox live and can play heavy traffic games like halo3,mw2 with no lag and surf the web at the same time no bother.its also 19.99 per month and that won't change.All I have to do is watch the 15gb usage and unlike vodafone it counts down instead of up so you can easily track what you have left.btw using xbox live doesnt have heavy usage 3-4 hours gaming uses about 35-50mb.Anyway as said above you can get a wireless router so that you only have one dongle but someone will have to sign the contract.I'd highly recommend checking your area for 3 mobile coverage but as im in the middle of nowhere you should be ok.If you don't get good coverage you can cancel within 14 days no charges.oh and if you sign 18 month contract yout modem free otherwise its 49.99 or something like that.Search around take them all and try them all for free then make your choice:}:)

i would be very suspicious of someone who only has 1 post which seems to go against almost every other post i've seen on the subject
do you work for 3?;)

watty

okedoke wrote: »

I think this one would work - but not sure €57

http://www.dabs.ie/products/zoom-3g-wireless-n-desk-top-router-65T1.html

It will work for any USB 3G modem on its list of modems. But 3G/USB/HSPA isn't Broadband.

ray giraffe

watty wrote: »

However if you all club together and pay in to pot or ISP for a year then you can cancel any time.

I was thinking of going with UPC but I think there is a cancellation charge of €100 for breaking the 12 month contract. If I put my own name on the contract I could get stung for it when I move out of the house.

Is there any way to mitigate this risk?

watty

Collect money in advance, a security deposit, from other inhabitants. Write it down and all sign a copy each. Only €25 each. A weeks petrol or 5 drinks each?

Karmafaerie

ray giraffe wrote: »

I was thinking of going with UPC but I think there is a cancellation charge of €100 for breaking the 12 month contract. If I put my own name on the contract I could get stung for it when I move out of the house.

Is there any way to mitigate this risk?

Put all your names on the account.
Both my parents have their name on their account for instance.

ootbitb

3 supplied me with a Nextivity cel-fi router with a usb connection.

Should I insert the dongle into this to share my 3 midband between a notebook and desktop?