Does anyone use one?

I am very tempted to cancel my broadband with virgin as it is absolutely shocking.

What kind of speeds do you get from three?

Tvm

Yup, I've had a 1st gen one and I'm currently using a 2nd gen one. but not as a broadband substitute. Only as a way to get internet access in hotels and the like who charge even more than the telcos do...


The 1st Gen ones (white case, with the LED screens) are actually not that quick - maybe 512KB/s if you're lucky. The 2nd gen ones do HSPDA and thus get in the order of 3-5Mb/s, assuming you're in good coverage. As a mobile device I'd say they're now excellent. But you only get about 6 hours life from a charge though, so I'm not really sure it's a practical static solution. If you're thinking of a 'permanent' solution, you'd be better going with a 3G USB dongle on your PC that then acts as a wifi hotspot routing out through the 3G modem, assuming you already have a PC. It's a pity femtocells never really took off, that would suit you..

Either way,I'm not sure a mifi is a replacement for standard home BB. Cost you significantly more money to get a bandwidth cap that would be considered 'basic' on home BB. Cost you the better part of £30 quid a month on a 24 month contract to get the same as virgin basic home BB which costs a tenner and I expect 3 would happily use traffic shaping if they feel like it.

If virgin are giving you crap surely ASDL would be a better option than a mifi?

Jon

I'm on adsl at the moment. No cable in the flats I live in a virgin won't install it even though my last flat (about 5 streets away) has cable.

Like I have said to them several times, I would pay twice the price if they put cable in.

I'm currently paying £23 a month for "10Mb" Internet with a 10GB cap but it isn't really a cap it's more like a "recommended allowance" and if you consistently go over it they warn you and then after that they start to slow your connection etc...

If I move to any other provider I will be stuck with the same problem of age old cables that can barely hold enough signal to route a telephone call but no one gives a sh*t as it's a block of flats that I am willing to bet not many of the people living here actually own their flat.

On 3 I can get a mifi device (the grey one with the LCD display) for free and pay £18 a month for a 15GB cap on data. Ok, that's for a 24 month contract but I can take it with me when I move.

The problem with the 3G dongle things is that I now do most of my browsing on my iPad and iPhone so I don't really want to keep my laptop turned on all the time to have an internet signal. I also wouldn't mind charging up the mifi when it needs it or even just keeping it plugged in until I need to take it out with me.

I've just been trying to watch tonight's university challenge on iplayer and it took me about an hour and a half to watch a 28minute program! It's getting ridiculous. This is the second router I have from virgin and it is currently plugged into the test socket (again) as they don't see, to believe that my connection is as bad as I say it is.

Yeah, our last house was line that. Due to line noise there was a limit of 512kn on ADSL, yet our half of the street was the only area in the entire estate that didn't have cable. Virgin made it clear to my neighbour that it was never going to happen either.

A bit more of a long term investment but have you considered getting a router that you can plug a 3G dongle into?
The Draytek Vigor 2820/2830 models let you do so as well as having ADSL connectivity and also being able to connect to Fibre/Cable if it's available (WAN passthrough port in addition to the adsl connection). I have a sneaking suspicions that some of the latest Netgear routers also let you do the same thing.

We use it. 8.2km away from the nearest exchange is a lot of rotten string. We had terrible broadband signal and couldn't maintain a signal at all, let alone a reasonable one. We tried 3 out with a PAYG dongle first before getting a contract and it seemed to work well so we started up the contract, got the thingy and it's been regular internet all the way since then. We even loaned the PAYG dongle to our neighbours who have been without internet since they moved into their house 3 years ago and they've now got a contract with 3 as well and things have been rosy at their house as well.

Speeds from a thread in the other place are: (I should point out that these are "WokFi" values as the dongle is sitting in a colander on the windowsill)
Download: 7.32 Mb/s
Upload: 1.06 Mb/s

I don't know if that helps. Practically it means that we have to let Youtube videos load all the way rather than streaming them, but otherwise it's perfectly functional for us and is certainly heaps better than the nothing we were able to get with broadband.

I am in a non Virgin street though I switch to Sky unlimited ADSL which is £15 because I do not have any other of their services (phone or TV). It is unlimited and I use it all day. No caps of any kind what so ever. It is cheaper if you have their phone package as well. Usual 12 month terms.

Changing provider won't help with the 'inside the wall' wiring, which sounds like it's Foggy's main problem. Given his detailed explanation of his situation, it does sound like a mifi would be as good a choice for him as anything. You could probably get away with plugging it straight into the wall (they charge via mini USB, so any old USB charger will do) and not putting the battery in at all to save it from wearing out.

The one observation I'd make is check how much they'll charge you for the second generation mifi (the black one). They really are better, both in terms of connection speed and in terms of displaying what they're doing, what connection state is etc. The 1st gen ones had these four cryptic symbols and you had to remember what a given combination of lit symbols means. Plus to get the thing to work at all you have to press a sequence of the right buttons when the right set of symbols are lit to get it to work (i.e. 'when the red and green lights are lit press the first button, then wait for the red and blue lights to come on then press the second button, then... etc). It's like something from The Krypton Factor. The 2nd gen have a proper display that shows you signal strength, number of client machines connected, how much data has been transferred this session etc and one button that switches it on, after which it does all the stuff itself. Much more convenient.

Jon

Agreed it will not solve the wire problem but it will solve the cap problems and is cheaper.

A guy at work said the same thing.

The second gen is "free" on a 24 month contract at £18 per month for 15GB per month cap.

Speeds "up to" 7.2Mbps.

I think that's the same deal we have, but the 15GB cap doesn't apply overnight I think?

See if you can get hold of a 3 SIM card and test what the reception is like in your flat.

See, that's what we thought as well, but the mobile reception with the SIM that Red bought was terrible, it wasn't until he bought a PAYG dongle that we were able to get a good picture of the signal strength, the SIM card showed no bars of signal even at the top, front of the house nearest the the mast, but the dongle works fine.

I think my dad has one of the three mifi thingies.

I'll ask if I can borrow his to check what it's like.

If not I think we've still got a bit of credit on the PAYG dongle so I could always stick that in the post to you...