Internet gone mobile (3 Prepay Mobile Broadband Modem)

Member Name: dajack36

Product:	3 Prepay Mobile Broadband Modem
Date:	04/08/09 (24 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good coverage in most areas, reasonably fast speeds, pay and go helpful

Disadvantages: Quite costly for regular use, download limit, not covered everywhere in the country

I think if I can remember correctly that I heard originally about this product from a 3 TV commercial, it said that internet was truly made free. I thought that looks like a great idea, and popped down to my local 3 store to pick one up, for a solid £29.99. I then topped up £20 on the modem, giving me for one month a total of 3GB worth of data to download.

I found the speeds of the dongle in my experience to be pretty solid and it did not fail me. It certainly was not as fast as the broadband speeds that I experience at home, but at the same time this is not the point, the point is that internet can now be used on the move. So for something that did not need to be connected to a landline to work, I was pleased. A web page would generally load in roughly 10 seconds or so, decent.

Another big issue regarding these modems is the data usage allowed for the price, and it really depends how much you pay and what you want to use it for. I bought this modem because it meant I could use it when on holiday, a trip, or just out of the house with my laptop. Meaning that I would only need it for webpages, and maybe a couple of Youtube videos, and these requirements fall well under the 3GB I was given. If you are a more eager internet user, or only go for the 1GB option for a tenner, then you may have to be a bit more careful when using one of these.

In terms of installation there was no hassle with this dongle. It is almost plug n play, but requires software to connect to the network, which is installed from a CD. The software is also used to measure speeds, say how much data is left, and also to receive any texts, something mobile broadband dongles can do.

Coverage is another issue, but while you may think it wont get good coverage where you are, if you can get a mobile phone signal then chances are this will work, the only problem being it will be much slower, and this does not apply to you if your phone is not on 3, as different networks get different coverage, this one may have more or less than yours. In my experience signal has been good, it even worked in Paris at no extra cost, to my disbelief. But on a holiday in Devon I could not get a bit of signal.

So I would certainly recommend one of these dongles to any internet users who would like to use it away from home and on holidays. It offers reasonable speeds and coverage, and is cheaper than many of the other alternatives from other companies, so I would certainly recommend it, especially a pay and go one, which only has to be used when you want to, for example a holiday month.

Summary: Despite some of its flaws I would still certainly recommend it

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