3G Broadband from 3

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tups7

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Has anyone experience with the 3G broadband service provided by 3.

I have moved into a new house, and cuerrently do not have a fixed land line. Looking into getting broadband, but the local providers (west cork) are looking for €50 euro a month.

I saw 3 are selling some sort of USB key that provides you with 3G Broadband for €20 euro a month. Is there any problems, other than coverage, with this service?

What other options do I have.
 
o2 and vodafone have similar products. check the coverage maps on thier web sites to see which would be best for you.
 
3 have by far the best pricing on this service (€19.99 for 10GB a month, versus €39.99 for 5GB a month on Vodafone and €40 a month on o2 (after 3 month promo ends)) although their charge for the modem is the most expensive @ €129

Three do give a 14-day free trial of the service, just in case coverage is an issue. I'm using their service and I think its brilliant. Although I don't even get one bar of coverage in my area, I get speeds of 200-300k - far in excess of the 64k I was getting on ISDN, which cost me 3 times as much per month ;-) (Its a real pleasure to no longer rely on €ircom infrastructure for Internet access!)

One important caveat with these products is that the advertised speeds (3.6Mbps) are rarely obtainable and will vary dramatically depending on how many users in the same cell as you are actively using the service.
 
Just acquired 3G Broadband from 3. Early signs not good. When I connect the Datamodem by a way of a USB cable to the USB slot in my computer -nothing happens- apart from the computer identifing the hardware connection. The 3 shop & brochure says that the software should just load once the usb connection is made. I've tried this on 2 computers but no joy.

I telephoned shop & they advised that that XP in some computers wont allow software to automatically upload. They said to get on to 3 website to download drivers? Doesn't make much sense if the product is supposed to be desined that u just have to plug in & therefore dont need a CD rom.

I would like to know has anyone got this problem OR can they offer areason why my computers wont automatically load up & is there a way around this problem before I ask for a refund. The mad thing is I cannot even try out this broadband. Finally I wonder could the Datamodem itself be at fault?

Seemingly it takes a number of hours before the sim card registers with 3 before u can access internet but I cant get that far.......Not too Good
 
can you see the usb device as a drive in windows exploer, ie drive E or F or as a text discription like you may see a camera. if you can click on it and look for something like autorun or setup.exe.
 
On one xp laptop that I installed it on it took 25 minutes for the wizard to start the installation (this is all after the found new hardware etc appears). Uninstall whatever is there at the moment, re-insert the modem and leave it there for ages - the wizard should start eventually.
 
Well I went ahead a bought it. Unfortunately the are where I live is not covered. I have to drive about four mile before I get the "blue light", but then it works great. They say that coverage should improve in october, so i will probably give it back under the 2 week return policy, and try again in oct.
 
Got it 1mt ago, works superbly well - mullingar, dublin and on train... grand. Speed typically 300-500kbps in Dublin/Mullingar - highest ever was 1.2MPs.
 
Did you get your 3G working, I bought it saturday and couldn't get it to set up. I was on to 3G modem dept in UK and they had me perform lots of different things to my laptop but still wouldn't work.
They advised me that it may be faulty and to bring it back and get a replacement, this I did but can't get that one working either
 
Struggled to get it installed when I got it... computer did'nt recognise it... played around for an hour and got it working... it's definately not easy to install... but once it is, it works great... can't remember how I got it working in the end... just kept trying.
 
working ok for me, only one spot so far it hasn't worked but bad coverage overall in that area. But it is slow, ok faster than dial up but slow in all areas so far.

I download music at work (DJ) and it can take 15/25 mins to download one tune, but it is good to have internet at work
 
It was one of those added bonuses I got after buying a 3 phone.
I travel alot both in Ireland an in Europe and love the fact that I can surf for sports scores when Im place like Italy and its included.

I havent used mine for music but for general internet coverage I havent had a problem

My other half has O2 and his is generally a bit quicker to get internet info but thats my only complaint
 
I bought one on friday and returned it the next day with a full refund. Shop in the pavillion centre, swords, were very comptent ( nice for a change).
I was getting speeds of 0 to 25 kb sec in glasnevin. Apparently, there is a system upgrade going on now for 2 weeks that will have it badly slowed down.
I may try again then to see if it improves.
 
I will be returning mine as well. Had to drive 5 miles to get coverage. I will wait a few months and see if any of the providers decide to cover West Cork.
 
Have mine about a month now and after the initial problems installing on Vista for the laptop ( Rang 3 technical support, after being passed around and around, eventually they told me it will never work with Vista and that I should return it within 14 days to get my money back - Note 3 technical support is a mobile number and isn't cheap to be ringing and being left on hold)

Never say never... took me a good 3 hours of playing around with drivers and firmware updates but I got there eventual. Now it works perfectly. No problems installing it on my XP desktop. worked straight out of the box.

I only use it in Dublin 5 (Average 1Mb) and Dublin 7 (Average 2.5) , but lent it to a friend who lives in Wicklow and it worked a treat for him also, but another friend in Drogheda can't get any reception at his house.
 
Can you tell me if you did anything specific with your XP to get it loaded. I couldn't get the first one loaded and even with 3G tech support help it wouldn't load and they told me it may be faulty and get the modem replaced. I did this and the second one won't work.
Have a 8 month old Dell Inspiron with XP Home
 
it worked straight out of the box for my XP machine and my friends also, but for vista I found a number of websites through google.

Vodafone use the same modem as Three so there was a little bit of information on the vodafone south african website. Try searching for "Firmware huawei E220" within google. also make sure to remove all drivers and start a fresh, use System Restore to ensure all reference are removed. Note System Restore does not work for Vista (Known Issue) for any one out there trying.
 
I got 3 broadband yesterday. I have vista and it installed pefectly. However when I connected the light was neither blue nor green but a kind of inbetween colour. THe connection was uselessly slow ie 10 minutes for googlr to open.

The reception bars vary from 1-3 but it does not seem to have any effect on the speed of connection. I rang 3 but I found it very difficult to make myself understood. I was told that the reception for 3 in my area (carrigtwohill) was good but they were planning work to boost it in the next week (coincidence?).

My question is, is it something wrong I am doing, or does that not blue/not green light mean I don't have the reception and should return it. Should I wait a few days and see does it improve. Any advice for someone who is technologically sub-normal
 
wonko said:
My question is, is it something wrong I am doing, or does that not blue/not green light mean I don't have the reception
Click to expand...
That light means it's detected a HSDPA signal, the fastest type of service.

My neighbourhood is listed as having total 3g coverage and that's the light that I get (and 4 bars). But, that said, the speed is more like dial-up and gets stuck a lot. Even though they claim speeds of up to 3.6mbs, the fastest I've had is just .12mbs.

I've tried connecting some Internet radio & it's ran smoothly for a while at between .01 and .06 mbs and then stalled for a while. These rates are grossly less than what's advertised

Treat these 'wireless broadband' claims with some scepticism. As a flat rate mobile data package it's reasonable value for light surfing and e-mail, but I've not seen anything yet that would make me drop my landline broadband.
 
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