....or even a 4G connection would do.
Wherever we go we always seem to be in the hotel bedroom that wifi doesn't reach properly so we end up wandering around the grounds looking for a signal.
Now, do we need a Mifi or something, at least I think that's what it's called.
I've looked at them online and I think we have to have a data bundle with them?
I don't really want to commit to a monthly payment as we only need it if we're away.
We also have loads of unused data allowance each month on our Vodafone contract for mobile phones.
But, I also think I have to buy a sim card to use with one and that's linked to a phone provider.
We're off down to Lands End at the weekend and I know the signal is lousy down there so is MiFi the answer, if so how do I go about it?
Can I create a personal hotspot without having a hot flush?:)
Pat
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I assume from your post you do not have a smartphone that has the ability to function as a WiFi hotspot.
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>> We're off down to Lands End at the weekend and I know the signal is lousy down there so is MiFi the answer.
Not if the signal is poor. It also depends on which phone network is the best in that area.
As Rob suggests, tethering from your mobile phone would be the answer, providing of course it's a smartphone.
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If you don't have a phone that can do tethering, you can also buy a dongle from some mobile providers that give you Wifi from the mobile network.
e.g. shop.ee.co.uk/dongles/pay-monthly-mobile-broadband/buzzard-2-from-ee/details
or something like this:
www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4395120.htm
for the O2 network - the cheapest data will be a Simm only data plan with Giffgaff which uses the O2 network.
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I use the GiffGaff Goodybags, but agree about its data only SIM offers for use with a Smartphone. See:
www.giffgaff.com/sim-only-plans/data
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yeah - I am seriously considering moving all our phones from EE PAYG to giffgaff.
1) because it is cheaper, and
2) because EE really means NA, Nothing Anywhere. On Ofcom's coverage checker, most the places I frequent seem to have better O2 coverage than EE.
maps.ofcom.org.uk/check-coverage
Why can't they just guarantee minimum 3G on all A roads and above? I don't really need "super fast" 4G. A more reliable 3G everywhere would be much better.
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>>I don't really need "super fast" 4G. A more reliable 3G everywhere would be much better.>>
GiffGaff includes 4G for the same cost as 2G and 3G.....
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Yes, I do have a smart phone, well I think it is, it's smarter than me anyway, Samsung S6.
But I'm happy with the 4g I can get on there but I don't do emails or car4play etc on the phone as it's too fiddly for my fingers.
I need to be able to get online with my laptop in the early hours when I'm the only one up!
I used to use a dongle in the lorry years ago and before that balanced the lappy on the dash with the old Nokia propped behind it facing the infra red port and that was slow!
Surely things have moved on since then?
Pat
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Just had a thought, can I tether my phone to my laptop via wifi and us my wasted data on my Vodafone phone plan?
Pat
Last edited by: Pat on Mon 19 Sep 16 at 14:29
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>> Just had a thought, can I tether my phone to my laptop via wifi and us my wasted data on my
>> Vodafone phone plan?
Which is why I asked if you had a Smartphone. Yes you can tether using USB or create your own WiFi hotspot (password protected). The phone then acts as a router.
If you drag down the quick settings on the SGS6 (first drag down shows your favourite 5 but drag down again shows them all). Amongst the quick settings is Mobile Hotspot.
If you select Mobile Hotspot it will warn you than enabling it will turn off wifi (i.e. the WiFi will become it's own network connection point).
Or if you go into Settings there is 'Mobile hotspot and tethering' as a setting. It can be turned on in there too. So can Bluetooth and USB tethering - the phone acts as a modem if you connect using those methods. Going via settings lets you set the access point name (default is AndroidAP) and set a password. You can also restrict devices that can connect, change security settings (default seems to be WPA2 Pre-Shared Key).
I have a SIM only Vodafone deal. For £19.20 a month I get 12GB of 4G data and also 4GB/month data roaming and calls/texts in the EU (for now at least but let's not do politics).
Last edited by: rtj70 on Mon 19 Sep 16 at 17:30
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>>
I used to use a dongle in the lorry years ago and before that balanced the lappy on the dash with the old Nokia propped behind it facing the infra red port and that was slow!
Surely things have moved on since then?
yes! - you can't do 55 on the M6 at the time ;-))
Last edited by: devonite on Mon 19 Sep 16 at 15:08
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In those days Devonite 85MPH was the order of the day on motorways, we didn't have speed limiters then!
The good old days when drivers were drivers and lorries sorted out the boys from the men:)
I've just tethered my phone to my laptop :) I think that may well work unless I have a crap Vodafone signal at Sancreed as well.
Pat
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I should have read your last reply Pat before I posted. Provided you have a Vodafone signal then you can share the data connection.
I assume you've figured out how to change password, etc.
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Thanks yes, I've worked it out now I know it's possible to do that.
That will certainly save wasting the data on my contracts!
Pat
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I only 'upgraded' to the 12GB deal from 2GB recently because it was discounted and most importantly comes with 4GB data in the EU plus Spotify premium (12 months I think). I barely use more than 500MB data in a typical month in the UK.
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I am in the process of changing my wife's mobile provider from giffgaff to TalkMobile, who have a decent 3G only, SIM 12 month contract of 1000 minutes, 5000 (wow) texts and 2GB of data for £7.50 month. (The 2GB promo. finishes 30/09/2017). Their network provider is Vodafone, which I know gives a good signal indoors here.
I will go on the same deal in a few days, before the 2GB sweetener runs out, as my current Vodafone SIM plan, at a tenner a month, expires very soon.
At the same time, I've cancelled our BT "anytime" calls, which was £8.50 a month, leaving us with the evening and weekend calls which came with our fibre package from BT
Out of plan hours calls can be by our mobiles.
So, man maths says :- 2 x £7:50 - £8.50 means two, decent enough for us, mobile plans for £6.50 a month.:-).
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I had the situation at the weekend where the wifi at the truck show site gave us 30mins free and then wanted to charge£5 for 12 hours access.
In the 30 minutes I only managed to load 4 pages of car4play so gave up completely but my phone could get a 4G signal perfectly.
....the b***** cat has just brought a live frog in to me so I have to try and catch it now:)
Pat
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In Greece at the moment and surprised by how good the WiFi is. Good enough to watch UK TV in the apartment and every cafe and bar I have been in provides free WiFi. Why do many hotels in the UK still charge ludicrous rates for something that should be included in the room rate. You don't get a separate charge for the heat and light do you?
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If you're on a package holiday in Greece they charge for the aircon though. Up until a few years ago they'd usually charge in hotels for WiFi too. They did where we went anyway.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Tue 20 Sep 16 at 11:56
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Not in my apartment
Air con and WiFi included in price. Did book direct though
Every taverna and bar here has free hi speed WiFi
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Tue 20 Sep 16 at 12:05
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>> ....the b***** cat has just brought a live frog in to me so I have to try and catch it now:)
We have a frog in the garden - don't see it often. After the torrential rain last week there was a dead frog with what looked like broken/messed-up limbs. It looked a bit bigger and maybe a bit more brown.... but it had to be the same frog right...? No because I've since seen the original frog. We have no ponds nearby so no idea where it lives.
And this site is not optimised for a phone is it - although you can read the RSS feeds if you set that up (I've not bothered).
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Frogs don't live in ponds, they only go into them to breed!
Pat
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That Toad 'im!
I've a frog living in my greenhouse, no pond but he's thrivin, - plenty of bugs tho' so he looks happy enough!
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Not sure where 'our' frog lives. Jut occasionally see it.
Also sometimes see foxes and once even a badger. Nothing to do with portable wifi :-)
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Surprisingly I can get Wi-Fi just outside my greenhouse, the bungalow over the fence has an unsecured connection, I never use it, but I suppose I really should tell them to secure it. Just to link the thread drift, i suppose I could play "Frogger" if I hooked in! ;-)
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I'd love a frog living in my greenhouse but there's always at least 3 cats asleep in there, so they wouldn't survive for long!
Pat
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I started with 02 back when Hyde Park was a flowerpot and am now back with them by way of GifGaf. Vodka phone and EE provided nothing much more than heartache although I stuck with EE, formerly orange for nigh on 15 years. Don't ask.
GGaf has been seamless and I'll likely not leave. Recently I've tethered an iPad mini2 to my 4s without issue.
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Been with GiffGaff for six years - as you say, a seamless experience and spot on renewal of my £10 Goodybag each month.
Lot of people don't know that 4G is standard now with GG without a cost penalty, as well as actually being a lot cheaper than owner 02's own various tariffs.
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It is about time that networks were forced to share their infrastructure for calls and data.
Cross charging would compensate for complaints from network companies with more complete networks than ones with more limited networks.
As I understand it, when a phone reports "SOS Calls Only" it is because the phone cannot get a signal from its providers network and has attached to another carrier's network.
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>>It is about time that networks were forced to share their infrastructure for calls and data.
Why? They paid for the license, invested, built and maintained the network, why should they be "forced" to share it?
They should be encouraged, even incentivized, but why forced?
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I fail to see why they should be 'forced'. They are paying for a licence and have infrastructure costs.
It is a fact that the GSM 900MHz frequency bands that both O2 and Vodafone have (originally for GSM) mean better coverage without the need for so much infrastructure (simple physics). And they will be re-using some of this for 4G.
But force... don't see the argument.
Maybe Sky should be forced to show all of the Football and F1 for free on BBC?
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Virgin Mobile, who I was with for many years before switching to GiffGaff five years ago, used to swap for the Orange signal in areas of below par strength - there were no alterations to charges etc if this occurred.
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Virgin mobile was originally a virtual mobile service piggy backing off the One2One network. It always uses EE/Orange these days. T-Mobile (One2One as was) and Orange merged in 2010 to become EE.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sun 2 Oct 16 at 14:53
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I still have the Philips Savvy mobile phone I acquired from Virgin Mobile in August 2000 when I joined - it cost me £40.
Its features included voice and auto-redialling, but one thing I do recall is a warning in the manual not to hold the phone too near the ear for long as burning could result from the short antenna...:-)
The only reason I gave it up was the fact that my daughter gave me a Nokia 3310 four years later, probably one of the marque's most popular models and which sold in its millions.
Last edited by: Stuartli on Sun 2 Oct 16 at 18:01
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Changed BB connection yesterday - all well now, more or less.
Tethered the laptop & ipad to the phone & it worked OK, not the best signal area.
When the BB came back on I looked at the phone 800MB consumed - turns out the new HP laptop had decided to download updates, for hardware (again), MS Office (again) & other Windows files. I had not realised the updates are ticked to download automatically & I then install them later. On the old machine it was set to tell me there were updates & I picked the ones I wanted.
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Portable wifi broadband? - rtj70
