Mobile Broadband dongles/suppliers

Hi, I'm contemplating taking the great leap forward to broadband with a
mobile USB dongle.
When I do a check for my postcode one lot, "3", says "good service in this
area" but another, "O2", says "we do not recommend .. for this area"
This surprised me cos I had thought that they would all use the same
transmitter network / infrastructure.

Is one lot being optimistic and the other pess. or do they really have
different coverages ?

PS. Those two gave me free text checks but "T-Mobile" charged me 10p
(twice) to send and never replied ! :-(

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 22:03:03 +0000, MalcolmP
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Hi, I'm contemplating taking the great leap forward to broadband with a
>mobile USB dongle.
<snip>
Three now HSUPA, definitely worth considering, IMHO!
--
"A useless life is an early Death" Goethe

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
(E-Mail Removed) writes
>On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 22:03:03 +0000, MalcolmP
><(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>Hi, I'm contemplating taking the great leap forward to broadband with a
>>mobile USB dongle.
><snip>
>Three now HSUPA, definitely worth considering, IMHO!

Yes to that. Check the supplied modem will support it, my older PAYG one
doesn't. Just checked and the standard ZTE MF112 on sale at the usual
suspects doesn't either, HSDPA/UMTS/GSM/GPRS/EDGE only.
--
fred
FIVE TV's superbright logo - not the DOG's, it's bollocks

>>Three now HSUPA, definitely worth considering, IMHO!

HSUPA ??

> ZTE MF112 on sale at the usual
> suspects doesn't either, HSDPA/UMTS/GSM/GPRS/EDGE only.

Thanks for the infos guys,
I have a lot to learn, dont know what any of those are ! Dont know if I
need it/them, I will do some googling and be back later,

** So _all_ the operaters have their own infrastructure, or do some
resell/lease/share ? **


My internet needs are modest (websurf, a little email and a little usenet)
and till now dialup has satisfied, I dont need megga downloads so
superhighspeeds are not an issue. I dont do P2P anymore and I dont think
"3" supports that anyway ?
Dont know if this is the right place to ask - does "3" have (binary)usenet
newsgroup server, cant see anything on their website. Any pointer to a good
review site on them ?

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 20:10:57 +0000, WaltA wrote:
> ** So _all_ the operaters have their own infrastructure, or do some
> resell/lease/share ? **

Ooops, sry, that was me (OP), not my mate, posting, forgot to change Ident
!!

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 09:27:17 GMT, Jono wrote:

> After serious thinking MalcolmP wrote :
>> This surprised me cos I had thought that they would all use the same
>> transmitter network / infrastructure
>
> What made you think each network doesn't have its own infrastructure?

Ummm, not sure really, maybe thinking of the costs and time and planning
permissions and things, complicated business hardware infrastructure,
specially if there is a school nearby. And it isnt unknown in other
telecoms situations, LLU with many ops sharing the same copper
infrastructure for example.

So, anyway, the answer to my question is ??
That I should believe the operator predictions and go with the one saying
"good coverage" ?

On 26/11/2010 21:23, MalcolmP wrote:

>
> So, anyway, the answer to my question is ??
> That I should believe the operator predictions and go with the one saying
> "good coverage" ?

Well, they seem to know (or ought to know) better than anyone else
whether the signal is any good.

It may, however, be advisable to ask around locally as well.

--
J B

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 21:54:30 +0000, J B wrote:

> Path: aioe.org!news.buerger.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail
> From: J B <(E-Mail Removed)>
> Newsgroups: uk.telecom.broadband
> Subject: Re: Mobile Broadband dongles/suppliers
> Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 21:54:30 +0000
> Lines: 14
> Message-ID: <(E-Mail Removed)>
> References: <(E-Mail Removed)> <(E-Mail Removed)> <1kulz62pkpt1a$.(E-Mail Removed)>
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> X-Trace: individual.net 7tW/csJlP7wowi2yFhRhjwFwKZW/9FoywIi8aZqhqtY+pLZzGr
> Cancel-Lock: sha1l52jc1PNvS7v81QDosMIUCrx64=
> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.12) Gecko/20101027 Thunderbird/3.1.6
> In-Reply-To: <1kulz62pkpt1a$.(E-Mail Removed)>
> Xref: aioe.org uk.telecom.broadband:15682
>
> On 26/11/2010 21:23, MalcolmP wrote:
>
>>
>> So, anyway, the answer to my question is ??
>> That I should believe the operator predictions and go with the one saying
>> "good coverage" ?
>
> Well, they seem to know (or ought to know) better than anyone else
> whether the signal is any good.
>
> It may, however, be advisable to ask around locally as well.

Yes it would be if I knew someone doing mobile broadband here!
I have a mate with a 3G phone, it is a bit iffy in some parts of my site,
but is not on "3", hence my wondering about infrastructures, u c

> Just checked and the standard ZTE MF112 on sale at the usual
> suspects doesn't either, HSDPA/UMTS/GSM/GPRS/EDGE only.

Maybe that is why it is on offer at £4.99 !
Anyways, at £5 up front and £15 for data thats not too many pints of beer
to try it out, better than being locked in to a 2y contract (£300?) for
what may turn out to be a lemmon
I think I may give it a try

WaltA <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> >>Three now HSUPA, definitely worth considering, IMHO!
>
> HSUPA ??

Fast uploads. Possibly even faster than regular ADSL.

> ** So _all_ the operaters have their own infrastructure, or do some
> resell/lease/share ? **

It's getting complicateder and complicateder by the month:

There are 5 'real' networks: Orange, O2, T-Mobile, Vodafone, and Three.
Each own some infrastructure (base stations and backhauls)

Any other network is a 'virtual' off one of those - hence will have exactly
the same network coverage as its host network.

Three only have a 3G network, the rest have 2G+3G networks.

When Three customers can't receive a Three signal, they roam onto Orange 2G.

Some Three virtuals (eg Andrews&Arnold) aren't enabled for 2G roaming onto
Orange.

Orange and T-Mobile have merged. Currently you can sign up to enable
roaming from Orange to T-Mob or vice versa, but it isn't automatic. It will
be, eventually.

Prior to this, Three and T-Mob signed an agreement to share 3G networks. I
don't know how far this has gone, but eventually Three users can roam onto
T-Mob base stations.

Presumably Orange and T-Mob will (eventually) merge their sites into one big
pool. I have no idea whether that'll mean Three folks can then use Orange
3G sites.


I hope you're taking notes at the back, I'll be testing you later

> My internet needs are modest (websurf, a little email and a little usenet)
> and till now dialup has satisfied, I dont need megga downloads so
> superhighspeeds are not an issue. I dont do P2P anymore and I dont think
> "3" supports that anyway ?

Sounds like Three should be fine then, if you have decent signal.

> Dont know if this is the right place to ask - does "3" have (binary)usenet
> newsgroup server, cant see anything on their website. Any pointer to a good
> review site on them ?

Don't think they have one. You'll have to find someone else's server (and
probably pay a little for it if you want binaries). ISP-supplied Usenet
these days is almost always flaky anyway.

Theo