Learnd » Archive » Living with mobile broadband

Living with mobile broadband

July 22nd, 2009hardware, lifestyle, the internet Stuart

Summary:
A story about a light/medium weight internet user who didn’t want to pay line rental or risk being lumbered with an early cancellation fee and opted for wireless mobile broadband.

Step1. £20 a month for 15GB (18months – Free mobile broadband dongle)
Step2. £70 mobile broadband to wifi router. (Had to buy in store, three have stopped selling them online?!)
Step3: There is no step 3.

I recently moved flat, and as any internet addict savvy individual will know, picking an internet service provider is a very important decision. So important, it came above council tax and utility bills on my list of things to do.

Always irritated by the need to pay BT line rental AND ISP fees, ADSL was immediately ruled out and the search for a cable provider began. It promptly ended when none of the companies online coverage checkers worked* with my new (and apparently, yet to be registered) postcode. The council were however able to find me to tell me they had not yet received the tax application… odd that.

Rather than attempt to sort this out on the phone (which ultimately would lead to the same conclusion after 35 minutes on hold) I considered something a little out of the ordinary. For a while, i had been using my mobile via bluetooth as a modem for my laptop. I have an optional extra on my phone contract which allows me ‘unlimited’ (In reality they get funny after a gigabyte) internet access on the handset. Technically you’re not meant to tether it, but desperate times and all. The speeds aren’t amazing, with perfect signal i think i’ve had it get up to around 40kb/s. So i thought why not live off a mobile broadband dongle in the home? No contract, no line rental and if my phone can get 40kb/s in the flat then a dedicated dongle could surely do better.

I borrowed a pay as you go mobile broadband USB dongle on 3 to test it out and the results were quite pleasing. Download speeds in excess of 1.2mb/s, not blistering that’s for sure, but good enough considering the saving i’d be making. Safe in the knowledge my flat was in an adequate 3G/HSDPA area i proceeded to buy my own dongle for surfing. As to be expected, it worked fine, but one USB dongle can only get you so far, namely, one computer. My ipod touch was desperate for some wifi, not to mention my xbox. After trying in vain to get the dongle to work with internet sharing on my mac (I’m sure there must be a way, but i CANNOT figure it out, i suspect the connection manager software provided by 3 is throwing a spanner in the works), I decided to buy a router.

Enter the huawei d100 router.

Manufacturers product page

This router costs about £70 and lets you plug in a compatible huawei USB mobile broadband dongle (mine is a E160G) and in turn broadcast wifi. It also has a single RJ45 jack (ethernet/LAN) for a network cable. This is enough for an xbox, or a switch if you wanted more ports. I am pleased (and rather surprised) to report xbox live works. The ping is a little higher than you’d like at times when the wifi is being used, but i’ve been causing chaos in Liberty City with no real trouble. Also, unlike the terrible free routers i’ve used in the past (cough)

So to conclude, I am on an 18 month contract at £15 a month (as an existing 3 customer i get a discount, applicable to contracts only). The 15GB a month is not ideal, i would happily pay for more, and an considering an add on, it’s more than enough for my current evening & weekend usage but i suspect a podcast/iplayer heavy individual would struggle. The great thing is, unlike a hard line internet connection, if i move inside the 18 months i can take my internet with me and not have to worry about cancellation fees, not to mention no line rental. Similarly, i can go out with the dongle and my laptop and use them anywhere in the UK.

This solution will not work for everyone. If you’re a heavy internet user (read: A torrenting pirate) you will eat up your limit in no time. Also, signal strength varies around the country so if you’re considering using mobile broadband, do check the internet strength on a handset of that provider in the location you intend to use it. That said, for me it’s worked very well and will save a lot of money in the long run!

Should probably sort out the council tax now.

*Tell a lie, there was one site that worked, Virgin media, but as discovered in my final year at university (when the same ISP question was being asked) their postcode search is actually broken and ‘works’ with any postcode. It has been well over a year and a half and they have yet to fix it… well done Virgin media!

Tags: 3, hardware, Huawei, Huawei d100, internet, isp, mobile broadband, router, usb dongle