Internet for the laptop when on the move?

Soldato
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Can someone educate me to what I would need to get internet on my laptop when on the move?

I.e where no wireless network exists.

Is this GPRS internet? Any cost examples? HW cost? cost per mb? etc

Thanks
 
Soldato
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I've got a Vodafone Mobile Connect Card (I think that's what it is called), it's a 3G/GPRS card. I've got it set so that when 3G is available it'll use that, otherwise it'll drop back to GPRS.

Price wise, the card was free and I pay (we really, it's on the Company mobile phone account) £1/Mb in the UK and £4/Mb outside of the UK. Prices are the same for 3G and GPRS traffic.

I don't remember what the monthly fee for the account is though, you can start at about £10/month but you get no inclusive data or pay me to get more bundled data and a better per Mb cost once you've used it all.
 
Soldato
OP
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Ouch, that's quite expensive.

If someone sent me a load of powerpoints (always happens) I could end up spending around £15 for the priveledge!
 
Associate
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Untill Wifi broadband gets decent coverage, which will be a slow process at best, 3g and GPRS is about all you got for now. (other than a stupidly expensive satellite uplink).
At the moment the only wireless communications network with resonable coverage is the Cellular grid.
 
Associate
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Is it possible to use a Nokia 6230i with the laptop via bluetooth and use the gprs that way?

I know some 3G phones and o2 sims etc.. have free gprs, surely that would be cheaper? Not as fast is the only down side.
 
Soldato
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You can get a Vodafone Mobile Connect card now for free on a £25 (+ VAT) a month tarrif with 250mb of data included.

Can't link to the site because it's a competitor though.
 
Associate
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All the various operators have 3G/GPRS data cards (other than 3)
Vodafone use a data card made by a company called "Option"
All the other operators (except 3 who do not offer a data service) use a variant of the Merlin 3G/GPRS data card
(unfortunalely this means you can only have installed the application for 1 operator using the Merlin Card, but can have Vodafone + another operator installed simultaneously)

T-Mobile have a "unlimited" package for £75 per month (has "fair usage limits" though, doubt leechers would want to use it anyway)
Vodafone have a 250Mb tarriff at the listed price above, not really sure on the O2 data card as it only arrived this morning

(if you are roaming internationally I would reccomend Vodafone as they have networks and partners in virtually every country, I have countless problems with the Orange data cards and roaming. T-Mobile seems OK for roaming, don't really know about O2. If you require usage in germany though avoid O2 as their 3G and GPRS coverage in germany sucks if you've seen the coverage map)

If you want to use it to connect via a VPN to a corporate network then you need to find out if it will work.

I have no problems with VPNs which work over UDP, however to connect to the parent company in Japan (which is forced over TCP) the only operators which seem to play ball are T-Mobile and Orange.
 
Associate
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Is there a network that allows gprs/3g mobile internet on the laptop through a pay as you go sim card.. as i have o2 pay as you talk and they only allow mobile wap. I have no problem with my O2 contract but my work do like me using it for data.
 
Associate
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I have a voda 3g card and have used the o2 one as well.

The voda card performs better than the o2 card, here in portsmouth, but i wouldnt like to comment about naywhere else. But be warned you dont get 3g everywhere, mainly motorways and big cities.

Using a vpn is fine i do it all the time, but beware both companies use NAT & PAT and a private address range on the internal network so bear that in mind, in case any of your software doesnt play well with it.

I think the voda card i have is unlimited and is 45 a month.
 
Associate
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I use GPRS from time to time on my laptop. I used it in France last summer, I'd only just got my laptop so it was still a bit of a novelty. I use Orange Pay as you go, over here it's £3/mB, in France it was £10/mB! After about 10 minutes on MSN, I'd drained £5 (which was the remainder of my credit - just as well or I'd probably have wasted more). Oh in case anyone wasn't sure, to use GPRS, setup your phone as a modem via Bluetooth and the number to dial is '*99#' - tells the phone to dial the default GPRS connection.

Publicly Open WiFi Mesh = 4tw :cool: Fat chance of it happening though :(
 
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