Broadband access from caravan - recomendations?

[minesa240x3]

I wish I had seen this posting before sunday!
We went to a carboot sale and I bought a Mobile Broadband USB Stick 610 from T-Mobile.Cost me £2 it has a sim card and can be topped up the same as a pay as you go phone.When I got home and looked to see how good a service it offers in the area we holiday I noticed it's regarded as very poor.
Ah well £2 won't break the bank but I should have not bothered Lol.
Buy in haste repent in liesure eh?
Regards Brian.

[Chaddie]

Originally Posted by c_lee

Thanks for the replies everyone.
Tonight I've been looking further into this based on your suggestions.

Hmm - I can see this is not going to be as straightforward as I expected if I want a package to exactly suit my use.

I guess I'm looking for something similar to the use I have with my mobile phone where I can load it with, say, £10 and that credit doesn't have to be used within a specific period of time.
I can use it gradually over as long as it lasts then top it up again.
Months can go by before I use up that £10 credit but it doesn't expire.

My impression is that with mobile broadband that is not the case.
PAYG credits appear to expire within a specified time period if not used from what I've seen tonight.
Guaranteed usage of the whole of the credit within that time period is not assured being that the use will be intermittent in the caravan.

That use depends on multiple things like weather, available time off work etc as to whether we will use the caravan at all within the time slot. Especcially in winter.
And, when we do use it, will we use it to take maximum advantage of the use we have paid for without that use expiring.

IE will we get all the usage we have paid for before it expires and this is the crux of it.

I hate having things taken from me that I have paid for - especcially by corporate bodies that have decided my spending rate doesn't meet their prefered customer profile.
In my mind I've paid for it so it's mine.

Thinking cap required!

BTW we've just had a few nights on a THS at Glasson Dock just south of Lancaster and it was a good break.
Nightly rate was £5.
The ground was a bit soft though and we had to have the caravan towed off by a 4wd - the V70 Auto even in L in Winter mode couldn't cope.

Colin

I think this best meets your needs:-

http://ovivomobile.com/

I bought one after posting my reply before, it'll cost you a one off fee of £5 for the Sim Card and you'll need a Vodafone Dongle or Vodafone Mifi (or an unlocked version) and that's about it.

They give you 1Gb of Data free each month (just log on every 60 days so they don't cancel your sim card). They get there income from adverts which pop up when you log on, but click the 'X' and away you go.

I can't think of a cheaper option

[c_lee]

Originally Posted by Chaddie

I think this best meets your needs:-

http://ovivomobile.com/

I bought one after posting my reply before, it'll cost you a one off fee of £5 for the Sim Card and you'll need a Vodafone Dongle or Vodafone Mifi (or an unlocked version) and that's about it.

They give you 1Gb of Data free each month (just log on every 60 days so they don't cancel your sim card). They get there income from adverts which pop up when you log on, but click the 'X' and away you go.

I can't think of a cheaper option

Yup Chaddie that's the one I've gone for.

I ordered the SIM and a 3G dongle tonight.

Should be here soon and then I'll see how it performs.
I ordered an unlocked Vodafone dongle just to be on the safe side in case it's not that good.
Ovivo use the Vodafone network so it should be easy to set up but I can always change if need be.

Colin

[c_lee]

Well I received my SIM and the unlocked Voda dongle yesterday and have been trying it out on my main home PC to familiarise myself with the set up before trying it on the laptop.

I activated my SIM on the Ovivo web site whilst connected via my home broadband.

I installed the Voda Mobile Connect software that came on the dongle. Unfortunately this isn't the same version that is demonstrated on the Ovivo web site and has several differences.
The dongle is a different Voda one too.

I made several attempts to connect to the 3G network for browsing without success and made sure I had entered the APN (?) for Ovivo correctly.

Ovivo offer support help to set up different Voda dongles and I think I will need to use this though I havn't yet - only just finished latest attempts tonight.

While testing on my home PC I tried out the SMS service via the the dongle and to my mobile and this works fine both sending and receiving text messages.
So it's obviously obtaining service - but not for web browsing at present.

I'll contact Ovivo for help if I'm not able to solve it in the next few days.
On the Ovivo web site my account is shown as credited with the free 5Gb allowance so it's just a matter of fine config details I guess.

Colin

[c_lee]

Just remembered I hadn't posted the outcome.

Ovivo's help service suggested there may be a confilct on the original install machine due to it having a USB modem installed previously and that modem using Vodafone's service to connect.

So I installed it on a different machine that had previously had no USB modem installed and it worked straight away once I had set Ovivo as the service provider.

Ovivo's help service is quick and responsive too.

Colin

[Chaddie]

Glad to hear its all working for you.

I also contacted Ovivo Support with a general point and they replied quickly and again a couple of days later with a follow up.

I hope the Business Mode works for them because they do seem to offer a customer service unlike some others....

[kenny37]

After the comments on here i`ve just bought myself one too. After a little senior moment(cant spell) and put in APN properly all worked well. Speed check shows slow speeds but mobile reception around here is poor. Will just have to see how reliable the service is and how goes the number of adverts and overall cost after a few months but so far so good.

[Chaddie]

Was out today and did a speed test (where I could get a better signal) with my Ovivo Sim cut down to fit into my iPad (using the App. speedtest.net) & the results:-

5365 kbps - Download
1182 kbps - Upload
117 ms - Ping


So the speed seems fine to me, if you're in an ok Vodafone coverage area.

[minesa240x3]

Originally Posted by minesa240x3

I wish I had seen this posting before sunday!
We went to a carboot sale and I bought a Mobile Broadband USB Stick 610 from T-Mobile.Cost me £2 it has a sim card and can be topped up the same as a pay as you go phone.When I got home and looked to see how good a service it offers in the area we holiday I noticed it's regarded as very poor.
Ah well £2 won't break the bank but I should have not bothered Lol.
Buy in haste repent in liesure eh?
Regards Brian.

Well heres an update.The T-mobile dongle works absolutely fine unlike the clubwifi package set up on our site.
The T-mobile sim is easily topped up and price range is very good IMHO.I got the Any seven days use in one month for £10,Or there is a week fixed useage for £7,and one day usage for £2.
The signal strength always reports 74% but maybe seems fantastic as this ancient old laptop is so incredibly slow.Wouldn't dare try downloading anything resource heavy with it.It freezes just going on you tube Lol.

It connects with no problems and so far I'm very pleased indeed.

The wifi on site was rubbish ;last year and we were right next to the pole?This year it's across the field and only connected once but the signal was to poor to actually work.So wasted £6 just for hassle.

Regards Brian.

[kenny37]

Not had ovivo long to be able to tell how good yet but offer has now changed. double price for sim and download has halved to 512mb. only want it for the holidays in van so can cope with a little payment when needed as long as i remember to use once a month to keep open!!!