You have a (typically) USB stick modem which - when there is a signal - accesses the provider's 3G mobile phone network. It should appear as a network connection on the PC/Mac/whatever.
If you've sold your soul bought a contract, they'll give you the modem, but you're then tied to them whatever happens. On PAYG you need to buy credit in exactly the same way as you would for a phone: registering a card with them, using vouchers, or a 'top up card'.
On T-Mobile PAYG, it costs £2 for every day you use it, but you can also send - officially only via a PC - a free text to their service and pay £7.50 for access for the next seven days or £15 for thirty days.
It's an indication as to how much profit there is in some of the contracts that, yes, this is what you can get a 'free' netbook with. That typically involves paying £30+ a month for two years = min £720 vs £200 for a netbook, £25 for the modem and typically max £15 a month for PAYG = £225 to £585 tops. I don't see the 'per month' cost of PAYG rising and it may well fall further.
Unless you are travelling in an area that has coverage all the time, you will probably be better off on a PAYG tariff. But before splashing any money, check that network coverage. Some networks do bits of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness, and that's Scotland for them.
The other gotcha, which I didn't mention because I already knew it, is that the advertised 'up to 3.6M bits/s' (or for some 7.2M bits/s) speeds are completely unrealistic rubbish. In practice, it's usually no faster (and often slower) than a 512k link and, if you're somewhere popular, contention makes things much worse.
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baggyeyes
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-10 11:10 am (UTC)If you've
sold your soulbought a contract, they'll give you the modem, but you're then tied to them whatever happens. On PAYG you need to buy credit in exactly the same way as you would for a phone: registering a card with them, using vouchers, or a 'top up card'.On T-Mobile PAYG, it costs £2 for every day you use it, but you can also send - officially only via a PC - a free text to their service and pay £7.50 for access for the next seven days or £15 for thirty days.
It's an indication as to how much profit there is in some of the contracts that, yes, this is what you can get a 'free' netbook with. That typically involves paying £30+ a month for two years = min £720 vs £200 for a netbook, £25 for the modem and typically max £15 a month for PAYG = £225 to £585 tops. I don't see the 'per month' cost of PAYG rising and it may well fall further.
Unless you are travelling in an area that has coverage all the time, you will probably be better off on a PAYG tariff. But before splashing any money, check that network coverage. Some networks do bits of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness, and that's Scotland for them.
The other gotcha, which I didn't mention because I already knew it, is that the advertised 'up to 3.6M bits/s' (or for some 7.2M bits/s) speeds are completely unrealistic rubbish. In practice, it's usually no faster (and often slower) than a 512k link and, if you're somewhere popular, contention makes things much worse.