Laptop: advice

[MsDG]

Either "Three" all you can eat 3G tarrif or Giffgaff

http://threestore.three.co.uk/TheOnePlan.aspx?ID=1184
http://giffgaff.com/

[Over Carl]

Three one plan (contract) is now totally unlimited (although not all promotional materials and staff have been updated).

3g is patchy round london due to volume of usage I'm guessing, I find I get much better performance at home in TW5 than I do on the roof of our office in e1. Got more to say but no time so will come back later.

[funkyg]

Either "Three" all you can eat 3G tarrif or Giffgaff

http://threestore.three.co.uk/TheOnePlan.aspx?ID=1184
http://giffgaff.com/

Giffgaff don't permit 3G data card use with their connections (unless they changed their T&C's recently)


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[Over Carl]

Ok, at work we have a few orange dongles, a handful on t-mobile and a couple on vodafone. Edit: Hope to get some 3 in soon.

Orange/t mobile perform similar. I prefer the s/w on our orange dongles, but it was a pita till I tweaked with the settings (otherwise it would hijack your wifi).

Max I normally get in london with good signal on them is about 4mb down and 1.5mb up with 120ms. (around less than 200-300ms or less means you can type words in google and you get the drop down suggestions and page loads don't seem much slower than normal pc). Sketchy performance though depending on areas - check coverage maps.

Annoying thing is the zte mf636 dongles orange give out have no aerial socket. Our t-mob are a bit older, dunno what they give out now.

Voda are giving K3805 and K4505 out at the moment. For both the dongles, there is another variant with Z at the end of the model no. These won't allow a PPTP vpn back to your office. In certain areas with HSPA+ mode I've seen max 22mb down and I think 4.5up, I think was about 80-90ms, felt almost like adsl. Again check maps, or for any operator you can call their tech support and they will let you know roughly what to expect in an area.

I mentioned aerials, only rarely had joy with directional panel aerials, found unidirectional normally work best but positioning still makes a big difference. You can get a small mag mount one that looks like a baby cab aerial (about 8 in) that actually help. A badly positioned aerial can actually drop signal though. Haven't tried a yagi aerial yet but hope to do so soon.

If you need to share, there is the mifi, or more advanced, dovado 4gr which is quite nice but bigger and has a plug, or draytek routers if you need vpn.

Edit: Also just for completeness of thread, MsDG was spot on about E6410 image not working in ATA mode.

[Over Carl]

Forgot to add, since orange/t mob merger, our 3g blackberries have turned shite - sometimes now usuable where not previously, but every day I get periods of full reception but no phone calls or sms (data still works though)

Soon they are going to allow mobile data users to use both networks, I'm bricking it after experience with phones tbh.