Looking for advice on Dongles

Ciaran-Irl

Hi all,

I was hoping someone here could give me some advice. A friend of mine is pretty unwell, and he'll be spending the next few months in hospital, sometimes in isolation. There's no functioning wifi. I was thinking of getting him some sort of portable USB broadband dongle so he could stream netflix etc. Can anyone advice on what plans are out there that won't cap out data quickly & also have reasonable speeds?

Johnboy1951

Speed will also depend on location and available service and also reception could easily be interfered with by machinery.

Best also to make sure there are no hospital rules about such devices ..... isolation does imply restrictions might be imposed.

Ultimanemo

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Speed will also depend on location and available service and also reception could easily be interfered with by machinery.

Best also to make sure there are no hospital rules about such devices ..... isolation does imply restrictions might be imposed.

Isolation has nothing to do with a new device coming in, as long as it is clean, but the catch is if there is an area were mobile phones are not permitted, then it will be open to definition

Ultimanemo

Huawei UNLOCKED B525 4G/LTE 300Mbps Mobile Wi-Fi Router
Or Huawei unlocked B315
Small dongles aren't good
Check on the map coverage for Three and eir.
Three gives you better contract and eir gives you better pay as you go.
Vodafone is another option but they are very mean with their allowance
Better buy from amazon or someone who sells unlocked devices, if you buy from local company it will be locked to the company and will be of no use to you if you take it home and find that company speed is no good

Ciaran-Irl

Thanks all three. Hospital is city centre Dublin. Mostly what I'm looking for is a large data limit so he can watch Netflix etc., but it's pretty difficult to tell them apart. They all seem prepay, tiny limits.

Johnboy1951

Do 3 still do their AYCE sim? €20 per month if there is a good signal at the site

Ciaran-Irl

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Do 3 still do their AYCE sim? €20 per month if there is a good signal at the site

If possible, I want to avoid pay as you go. I want to just pay a monthly bill for a lad who has enough on his mind. I rang Vodafone, and they said it's a 24 month contract only, which I can't do.

Ultimanemo

Ciaran-Irl wrote: »

Thanks all three. Hospital is city centre Dublin. Mostly what I'm looking for is a large data limit so he can watch Netflix etc., but it's pretty difficult to tell them apart. They all seem prepay, tiny limits.

If you buy your router three have 250G / month contract, I think they call it rollover contract, that you can end it at the end of each month, it costs 69 Euro per month

my3cents

Ciaran-Irl wrote: »

If possible, I want to avoid pay as you go. I want to just pay a monthly bill for a lad who has enough on his mind. I rang Vodafone, and they said it's a 24 month contract only, which I can't do.

No you don't! Pay as you go limits your exposure to out of bundle charges if you only have €20 as a top up the provider can only take that from you as a max. With bill pay you could run up a much larger bill.

A three prepay phone SIM in a broadband device is what you want and top it up by €20 every 28 days for unlimited data (although three can be slow a peak times). If you like you can do it for the person in hospital provided you know the number.

Ultimanemo

my3cents wrote: »

No you don't! Pay as you go limits your exposure to out of bundle charges if you only have €20 as a top up the provider can only take that from you as a max. With bill pay you could run up a much larger bill.

A three prepay phone SIM in a broadband device is what you want and top it up by €20 every 28 days for unlimited data (although three can be slow a peak times). If you like you can do it for the person in hospital provided you know the number.

Strange
I did that and my 20 Euro gone in one day, may be I am doing something wrong

my3cents

Ultimanemo wrote: »

Strange
I did that and my 20 Euro gone in one day, may be I am doing something wrong

Don't know if newer SIMs are different but neighbor used to work for three and recommend that plus works for me

You can check in My3 if you have unlimited data (2TB) so can see if its likely to work.

Ciaran-Irl

Thanks all for that advice. Much appreciated.

colm_mcm

I would just use a 3 sim and hotspot from an old smart phone.