Mobile Broadband in Galway

tonyhiggins

Does anyone use it? I'm looking into getting it. I've read the threads elsewhere on boards (Three seem a big no-no) but I'm wondering what experiences Galway folks have of using it - coverage, cost, reliability etc?

Skyuser

I have Three mifi broadband and it's great. Very reliable and constant speeds of about 3-4Mbps.

tonyhiggins

What's the actual monthly download limit for it?I feel like I'm going round in circles a little reading stuff online, will be calling into the shops today

Malice

I've got O2 mobile broadband and it can be quite fast. It certainly seems a lot faster than when I was living in Cork. The monthly download limit is pretty small (15Gb) and you can't run multiple devices off it but otherwise it's fine.

tonyhiggins

Hmm ok, 15gb for one person is not the worst though. Do you have contract or pay as you go?

Malice

tonyhiggins wrote: »

Hmm ok, 15gb for one person is not the worst though. Do you have contract or pay as you go?

It's an 18 month contract at €20 per month. You only get the 15Gb allowance if you go for that long, otherwise it's something like 10Gb for a 12 month contract and 5Gb for a 6 month contract.

tonyhiggins

Hmm ok, reading their site it I thought it said 15gb for any billpay plan. I'll scope that later..

Malice

tonyhiggins wrote: »

Hmm ok, reading their site it I thought it said 15gb for any billpay plan. I'll scope that later..

Actually it looks like you're right. When I got the O2 mobile broadband back in October 2009, those were the terms I was quoted. They've obviously changed them since then.

tonyhiggins

I dunno, going into the more detailed breakdowns of cost it becomes way less clear I'm afraid. There's no mention of 15gb anywhere in the detailed breakdown, perhaps it wasn't updated when the main offer was. I only want 6months contract as I don't know where I'll be.

RolandIRL

on o2 mobile bb, and i find it very good. speed is grand for browsing and such, not really for downloading anything. on it for €10 a month with 10gb allowance in a 12-month contract (deal here only if you're a student though).

realistically you should expect speeds of < 1 mbps...it says up to 7 mbps, but maxing out my connection, i've gotten maybe 700kbps at most. i think there's only been 1 or 2 days when i haven't been able to use it and i think they were doing maintenance work then. another issue i have sometimes is they block sites, citing that it's hosting child porn, when in fact they don't. imgur and fileserve were blocked for a while, but they seem to be back now.

if you go over your limit, i think o2 are the cheapest at 2c/mb, whereas i think 3 charge 2c/kb (1000 times more) :eek:
vodafone, i wouldn't go for, i think you have to pay extra to unlock P2P/VoIP services like torrents or skype. not too sure about that though

Malice

Something else to bear in mind with O2 is that they block some filesharing websites like filesonic.com.

RolandIRL

some filesharing sites are blocked, i've noticed, but using a download manager, i've still been able to download from them. fileserve was blocked for a while but i was still able to download from it. weird.

Just did a speedtest there for o2 to give you an idea.

tonyhiggins

Cheers, thanks very much. O2 were the only one who did try before you buy so I'm doing that right now, seems to be ok to be honest. As fast as the Eircom connection at home :P

tonyhiggins

ciano1

Im on Meteor in Galway City.

tonyhiggins

I'll do the eircom one when I get home too..

samdeman

i think most of them let you have dongle for a week to try before you buy

depot

I had 3 mobile broadband for a while and it was poor, it kept disconnecting and was slow, think it might depend on the area you live too.

big b

whiteman19 wrote: »

realistically you should expect speeds of < 1 mbps...it says up to 7 mbps, but maxing out my connection, i've gotten maybe 700kbps at most. i think there's only been 1 or 2 days when i haven't been able to use it and i think they were doing maintenance work then.

What do you mean by "maxing out your connection"?

I'm in a poor reception area (apparently) am on O2 bb with a wireless router which is in a spare room upstairs by a window (which is open on dry days).
Signal meter usually shows 4 out of 5 bars & signal strength described as either good or excellent.

The highest speed I've achieved is a whopping 25kb/s, more typical is about 15 :eek:

Really really don't want a landline because of the need for poles to be installed, so any advice on how to improve my "speeds" would be appreciated.

tonyhiggins

Here's the home eircom connection, for a comparison..

big b

tonyhiggins wrote: »

Here's the home eircom connection, for a comparison..

thanks for that, Tony. Thanks a lot.


:D:D

tonyhiggins

Heh, sorry. To be honest, I notice no real difference browsing when using either. I didn't try any serious uploading or downloading with the mobile one yet though.

Bummer1234

ciano1 wrote: »

Im on Meteor in Galway City.

This doesn't look bad at all...Perhaps meteor is a dark horse in all of this,What are they like overall on broadband ciano??

ciano1

Bummer1234 wrote: »

This doesn't look bad at all...Perhaps meteor is a dark horse in all of this,What are they like overall on broadband ciano??

Well I'm on the student plan (€9.99 a month for 10gb) which does me grand for just browsing. Im sure there are other plans with a better allownace.

Overall I find it great, browsing is really fast and find it almost as good as my 20gb UPC connection at home.

I rarely get any slow-downs, even during 'peak' times

Latest speedtests:








The ping on mobile bb is usually fairly bad but shouldnt make a difference unless you're trying to do some online gaming (Which I've tried before on xbox live and found it to be very usable) .

thecivvie

This is Vodafone MIFI through my iPhone. Never had any real problems, speed always very good

Gaffs89

This is 3 in Tuam Area. Averages about 2Mbs download.Some problems about 2 weeks ago,they said they were doing maintenance. It was good again after a few days.

biko

Like www.getbroadband.ie compares broadband you can compare mobile broadband offers on www.broadbandireland.ie/mobile-broadband.php
What area are you in? Will you be using it at home only or also in cafes etc?

A friend of mine lives on Cross street and the signal can be weaker if you're in a lower flat than one higher up.

tonyhiggins

It will be just at home in Lower Fairhill I reckon. I want it mostly for emailing mp3s of music I'm working on for soundtrack stuff. I'd find somewhere else for uploading WAVs when the time would come. So far so good anyway there, I'd been warned reception might not be too hot in that area but it seems ok.