Malcolm_Stewart
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 11/07/2005
Posts: 2248
Loc: Milton Keynes, UK
|
|
For a variety of reasons I can't get land-line broadband at my home address in Milton Keynes. A few weeks ago I saw an advert for Mobile Broadband from mobile phone company "3", so decided to give it a go. I paid ~£50 for a USB dongle, and £15 for my first month's downloads, 3GB limit. The dongle self-installs and I've had it working on my desk-top and my laptop equally well. My dongle has a mobile phone number so I can send it text messages, and my computer then rings just like a GPO phone did about 40 years ago. All went well until last Sunday, June 1st when it was as though I'd been rejected by the network. I had to revert to land-line 56k dial-up.
The "3" shop told me that they'd had a network outage last Sunday - this morning, I noted that the roller shutters on the "3" shop in Milton Keynes were very closed. I'm now beginning to wonder whether there's more going on behind the scenes than I've been told...
Perhaps I'll be able to use the dongle/SIM/USIM on other networks if "3" disappears completely. Strange that at lunchtime today the BBC were running a news item about Mobile Broadband and their report was based on land-line problems in Milton Keynes.
--------------------
Malcolm Stewart
|
Scphoto
Little Fruitbat
Reged: 13/11/2005
Posts: 2400
Loc: Birmingham, UK
|
|
3 definitely haven't disappeared as I'm posting this using the same USB dongle!
The Modem may be locked to 3's network (like most phones and networks) but it's standard HSDPA modem so it should be fine so long as you can configure it.
Sounds as if it's a local problem. I know 3 and T-mobile are combining 3G masts. Maybe they've cocked up the MK one during this process
--------------------
Happiness is a Kebab call donor - Pictures/Blog
|
Siuya
Cool Hand Chris
Reged: 21/07/2001
Posts: 9411
Loc: Knackers yard!
|
|
I've looked into it but have found too many complaints about its reliability - works OK for a few weeks then starts playing up 
The networks ran big advertising campaigns promising the earth but the take-up has overloaded them - they weren't designed for lots of data traffic
Still, should be alright in another couple of years or so 
--------------------
Chris
The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it (AA)
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit
Reply
Quote
