Pay as You Go Broadband

I asked the sales lady to show me a map of coverage. She did and said that I was very close to a “yellow” zone which meant really bad coverage. I asked her advice should I buy or not? She said, “buy, as Vodafone had the best coverage in the UK and it should work.

I was bundled a GBP 5 mobile broadband deal with my contract renewal. I still have no idea how much data transfer I have or anything but it was cheap and the sales man focused on the “cheapness” of the offer saying it was the best in the UK.

The dongle is plug and play. The only thing I don’t like is that the Vodafone experience is now in German which is very frustrating. It automatically set up in German as the PC was originally purchased there.

This was extremely simple.

Vodafone has gone the extra mile here. The interface is clean fresh with a load of additional information such as your phone number and how to top-up all on one screen. The way it moves from GPRS to 3G and 3G + is also clear.

Picture to follow

3’s user interface looks like it was made and designed in outer Mongolia. It reminds me of the old DOS platform and is ugly and if there is no network it just doesn’t work. There is no clean interface or any other information including what your phone number is. Picture to follow

3G+ only works if I stand next to the window. In the house it is GPRS which is horrendously slow. But at the window 3G + provides a good fast surfing experience.

For the past 5 days I have been online for longer than 5 minutes only once. That was at 11.30 at night. During the day the connection lasts 30 seconds and then collapses. At the window I sometimes find HSDPA – but even that can be lost if I move slightly or have a sip of tea.

If you don’t mind being perched at the window this is a great pay as you go email checker service for use on the fly.

The service doesn’t work. You get what you pay for.