Wi Fi

[Patricia]

Randonneur - 2008-04-01 9:40 AM

 

Does this make sense to anyone?

 

Orange France are offering a WiFi dongle 3G+/EDGE for 99 euros less 70 euros refunded therefore you are only paying 29 euros. That's straight forward.

 

Then the charges are:

 

20 mins valid for 24 hrs 3 euros

2 hrs valid 30 days 15 euros

Evenings after 6pm 12 euros

 

Weekends valid from Wednesdays 15 euros

 

My French isn't good enough to be able to interpret the full offer, maybe someone else can.

 

http://www.orange.fr/bin/frame.cgi?u=http%3A//sites.orange.fr/boutique/files/html/pe_pack_pccard_1.html

 

Thank you for that link - it sounds very useful to me although somewhat expensive (certainly if you sign up for 12 or 24 months). However, this 70

euro refund for occasional use sounds good. I have read the website and conclude the following:

1. You have to buy and subscribe i.e. buy a Pass Internet Everywhere before 23 April 08.

2. You then have to send off several proofs of purchase to arrive before 19 May.

3. They will only post to a French Metropolitan address i.e. mainland France or Corsica.

4. There is a limit of 5 offers to one address.

5. The pass for 2H over 30 days seems the best option to me - the others have severe limitations on downloads i.e. 75mb or 100mb.

6. You can purchase the passes on the web.

 

I am seriously thinking of purchasing this product (as I have a French address) and I notice too that you live in the Charente so you should be ok for delivery. Hope I have explained what you wanted to know.

 

Incidentally I also found that the Orange Mobicarte is on offer for 15 € instead of 30€ so I will get another one of those too (it includes 5€ of calls too). They are very good for sending text messages back home - much cheaper than on English mobiles. You have to top up by a certain date and that is how I lost my original number as I was in England and didn't receive the reminder letter!

 

PS The 9€ USB is only if you subscribe monthly. Thanks again for this link - I have wanted this info for some time.

Patricia

[Patricia]

If your's is like the T-Mobile one the longer lead is to give you more flexibilty in positioning the dongle to get the best signal. The second connection is to give it more power.

[peterandirene]

Doug

I did the deal at the Shrewsbury 3 shop, Carphone Warehouse couldn't match. The offer caught my eye as they had a sandwich board outside the shop offering this deal. I called in today to arrange for my mobile number to be moved from Orange to 3 and the offer is still on. The sales rep told me that they have sold more than 300 during March.

As a matter of, unrelated, interest I was a bit concerned about Orange giving me a PAC code to move the number to 3 but they did it within 2 days of my request! Well done Orange.

Peter

[Randonneur]

Thanks Patricia for the reply.

 

The 2 hours for 30 days does seem a good deal. We have Phonexpat broadband at home but obviously cannot use it when we are away in the motorhome. I wonder if you could use the dongle 2 or 3 times a year and just be able to buy the 2 hrs time when you need it.

 

It does seem a very interesting offer, I haven't seen anything like it from other providers.

 

I use Orange Paygo here and topup every 3 months for 35 euros which gives me 45 euros but I can never use it all. I have a balance at the moment of 70 euros and on April 15th will have to top up again. Mind you when I use it in England it soon swallows up the credit.

[Patricia]

As you don't have to subscribe I would think you could top up when you need it but I will look at the website again and try to find the small print!

 

At the moment I am not spending so much time per year in France so the Mobicarte is better for me - worked well when I had it before. Unfortunately though people from England quite understandably continued to phone me on my O2 mobile which of course is more expensive. At that time it was cheaper to call them back on the Mobicarte but I will have to look at the prices again now.

 

I also use Phonexpat for phone calls in France but where I am broadband is still not available unfortunately but again I will have to investigate again.

Dial up there is excruciating - sometimes I even manage speeds of 24 kbps! Last year though I couldn't connect at all after a storm and was convinced that the modem had blown. After buying another one (which still didn't work) I returned home and the laptop modem worked perfectly. Felt a complete fool in PC World in front of a queue!!

[snobbyafghan]

Peter

 

Was that for a dongle or a 3g phone?

 

Doug

 

 

[peterandirene]

Hi Doug

I took out a contract for a 3G phone, Nokia 6500 slide, for 18 months with 300 free minutes (any network, any time) per month. That allowed me to take advantage of their half price dongle offer for existing customers. 3GB download limit per month, free dongle, 18 month contract.

Total cost per month £22.50.

I am very pleased with both the phone and the dongle, wish I had held out for a 2GB microSD card, but would probably be pushing my luck there!

Peter

[snobbyafghan]

Pete

 

Thanks - so you've got to be an existing customer to get that deal. I've just bought a new phone so I don't think I'll go that route.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Doug

 

 

[Mel B]

Okay ... I'm convinced!

 

I'm going shopping on Saturday for:

- a new mobile phone monthly contract

- a broadband dongle to replace the land-line broadband

 

Once I've done this I'm going to ditch the land-line broadband and the land-line normal phone and just have the mobile phone and mobile broadband connection. Now, for someone who currently has a PAYG mobile phone which gets less than £10 of use each year this really is frightening for me - getting out of the dark ages and into the 21st century!!!

 

So, before I go and do the deed (the same one as Peter & Irene probably), is there anything I should be considering, looking out for etc, bearing in mind that once I've done this I will no longer have a land line? (Oooooo, it's frightening the thought of not having an earth based 'umbilical cord' anymore!)

 

The most obvious questions to ask I suppose are below - sorry if some of them are daft, I've really got very little experience of mobiles, I don't use mine much as it disturbs the nice family of moths that lives inside it!

 

1) Does anyone do this already (ie no land-line of any sort) and does it cause any problems, of even have benefits?

 

2) Are the minutes you get included in the packages each month (usually 300) sufficient for your needs? We are not heavy phone users, quite the contrary, but I assume the 300 minutes would be to any phone, ie landline, same network mobile or other network mobile?

 

3) Is the broadband speed comparable to a land line? We currently have a 2gb land-line broadband monthly limit, most of the mobile broadband packages seem to do 3gb minimum, I assume the rate doesn't go 'quicker' with mobile broadband (told you some of the questions might be daft.)

:D

 

4) I speak to my Mum 3-4 times a week, for a maximum of 1 hour total usually, she tends to ring me though. We currently get free local calls so i don't have to worry about the cost. However, with a mobile phone only would I be better getting her a cheap PAYG mobile on the same network to benefit from free calls? I assume by free calls they mean it doesn't eat into your 300 minutes a month?

 

Okay ... let rip, lets have the giggling, daft comments (the more the merrier!) so that I can at least go into the shops on Saturday and sound like I know what I'm on about. :-D

[Patricia]

One point I would make is that the speed with a dongle is probably much less than your present connection. Also the 2GB and 3GB you mention are the amounts of data that you can use each month, not the speed. I would certainly think that 2GB is ok unless you want to download lots of music etc. The 3G speed is not very fast and bear in mind that most of these contracts now are for 18 or 24 months and technology will change a lot in that time. I signed up last September for the dongle - 24 months at £20 month congratulating myself that the week before it was £30 - and now of course some contracts are only £10. Also all networks may not operate in the area where you live. My area for instance is very limited.

[Keith T]

Mel B

 

Hi, a couple of comments on your quesitons....

 

Firstly, dont assume anything which may or may not be included......ask the questions of WHAT is covered, as differnt contracts bary. Some may only included landline in UK and only the same mobile network. Most will exclude any 0844/ 0870 type calls and even 0800 numbers. There may also be restictions on times/days when 'free' calls ar covered.

 

We have no landline at present, and use a Vodaphone mobile formake/receive voice calls, with 500 'free minutes' and I think 1000 texts. Ususally we are nowhere near these, and i now need to reveive the tariff.

 

Our 'three' dongle gives us 1GB per month download. This seems adequate for our needs and so far the most we have got up to is 75% of this. However, if you do a ,ot of downloading, say films or music, then this may well be insufficient.

 

The only very important things to bear in mind is, as mentioned above, the speed will always be less then your landline, and also less reliable. You should also check that where you are located is actually covered by a good signal...as we travel around the Uk we fund this varies consideraby, and toget reliable intrnet/e-mail access we find you do need a strong signal.

 

Hope this helps a bit.

 

[Mel B]

Okay, I've done it!!!!

 

I am now connected through the 3 network!!! I did a load of research this morning 'on foot' going into various shops for the mobile broadband suppliers and none of them could touch the offers at the 3 shop itself, for both broadband and the phones.

 

So ... we've plumped for:

 

- 1 x broadband dongle @ £12.50 a month (£25.00 reduced by 50% for the contract period of 18 months) - this gives me 7GB per month.

 

- 2 x mobile phone packages at £15.00 a month each

 

- 1 x PAYG sim card (for free! - should've been £1.99). This is for us to put in one of our old mobiles (an unlocked 3 phone) so that I can contact my Mum and it won't cost me as I'll just use the 'free 3' minutes.

 

Total cost: £42.50 a month.

 

We plumped for the Nokia 6500 slide phones, one silver one black as they are a nice solidly built phone in a metal casing so less likely to damage them, they have a large screen, and I can read them without having to use my glasses! By getting the same phones we have the advantage that we have got 2 mains charging units, cables etc so we can leave one set at home and keep one in the camper.

 

As we've taken a contract out for 2 mobile phones at the same time we've got an extra 2300 minutes '3 to 3' phone calls on each phone for nowt, if we'd done one then another later it would only have been 2000 extra '3 to 3' minutes on each phone. I did look at getting one at £12.00 a month for 100 minutes talk time (300 with the £15.00 a month contract), but the phones weren't as nice and I couldn't read the screens!

 

The call cost to UK landlines and other networks is 12p per minute flat rate, including 08 numbers, they don't differentiate. The only ones that incur an extra charge are premium rate numbers.

 

It also includes free voicemail, free instant messagiing and free Skype.

 

I did look into the 3GB broadband monthly package which would've been £7.50 a month but was concerned that once I leave work I won't have access to the internet there so would be dong more on my personal connection and as my last couple of months usage was over 2GB and that's wasn't including sending/receiving photos, dowloading video etc, so it was going to be sailing a little bit too close to the wind. Although, the broadband package can be upgraded later during the contract, but it would probably be at the full monthly cost as they 50% cost is a special promotion at the moment - once you've got it at half rate, you've got it for the duration of the contract. I didn't want to find out that in 6 months time I was exceeding my limit and then having to pay the full price for the upgrade.

 

As for the connection, it seems to be working fine and is as fast as my landline broadband so I'm quite happy with that. I'll now give Karoo broadband the elbow!!!:-> Followed by my landline.:-)

 

Now all I've got to do is teach my 83 year old Mum to use a mobile! 8-)