12157 Dongles for laptops

"moved to italiauncovered.co.uk"

There have been articles in UK papers about people using them abroad when they are signed up to a UK provider and ended up with horrific bills, but I would imagine something as above would be a different case. Worth checking billing of course.
Daughter's boyfriend had one but coverage was so dismal he gave it up. If it works it sounds brilliant. How about Blackberrys?

We have a 3 dongle that we bought in the UK, and which you can use in Italy at no extra cost. The big issue for us was speed. We found that, although we had a resonable signal in Lunigiana (near Villafranca), the speed was so slow at times it was quicker to use dial-up. Early mornings weren't bad, but come evenings and weekends, with presumably everyone on their telefonini, bandwidth just disappeared. This was towards the end of March.

We have the pay-as-you-go option from 3 UK, which is based on number of gigabytes valid for a specific time period. You can also get a monthly contract. The 3 shop in Aulla quoted a different pricing model if you bought your dongle from 3 Italia. For pay-as-you-go, you get gigabytes OR hours connected. The gigabytes option was much, much more expensive than the UK, and the hourly cost - based on our experience of the download speeds - would also be expensive. If pushed for how much more expensive, I'd say an unscientific, very roughly, don't hold me to it, maybe 50% more! If you want to be more precise compare the prices 3's UK and Italian sites and factor in dial-up speeds when it comes to hourly rates.

[quote=Cinghiale;116539]In the UK you can get a dongle from mobile phone companies to plug into your laptop instead of using broadband or WiFi. They cost about £20/month and mean you can use your laptop anywhere there's a mobile phone signal.

Are these available in Italy and, if so, which mobile phone networks provide them?:wideeyed:[/quote]

Hi use a 3 dongle costs £10 per month & as there is 3it in italy costs are the same & so are the phone costs. Suggest check out web site (UK) all the best

Hi

I live in England but visit Italy quite a lot with the motorhome. I have a THREE UK dongle that costs just £7.50 per month and this also works in Italy for internet access, without further charges. However, on 30th June, this "offer" ends and so I am not too sure yet what will replace it. No doubt more expense.

I also have a Vodafone datacard that has been unlocked and can accept any SIM. I use a WIND SIM card in that for net access, if a THREE signal is not available.

Russell

My son had a 3 skype phone and dongle which he arranged in UK and was told would work out here. IT DOESN'T where we live. He has tried all over the house, garden and up in town. I have Vodafone which originally I paid €199 for the dongle and then €30/month for 100 hours. There was also a €10/month for 30 hours option (from memory). These were both pay-as-you-go and hours could not be carried over to the following month. As we are here permanently and I need daily access for work (landline not an option) I have just signed up Vodafone's contract which for €30/month I get 10 hours per day and free dongle. The original pay-as-you-go dongle gratefully received by son with rubbish 3 dongle! We looked into TIM but found Vodafone offered best signal for us. Would recommend checking signal before you commit. TIM told us to use mobile phone as indicator, thus we checked all friends mobiles with different providers all over our house. Other point to consider if you plan to use it here and in UK, Vodafone offer is Italy only when set up here.

the 3 dongle is free in Italy, and you pay 10 euros a month for access. All the other providers as far as I am aware charge 100 euros or so for the dongle.

"moved to italiauncovered.co.uk"

i didnt know they were called dongles..i am still laughing at the name :laughs:

Have a look at Fastweb as they also have a mobile offer: had a leaflet but can't remember the details. I've been happy enough with their broadband, although a bit expensive.

"moved to italiauncovered.co.uk"

[quote=ram;118393]the 3 dongle is free in Italy, and you pay 10 euros a month for access. All the other providers as far as I am aware charge 100 euros or so for the dongle.[/quote]

3 in Aulla quoted us Euro 60 for a dongle on pay-as-you-go!

Alice Mobile (which uses TIM for the mobile signal) has several dongle packages including one ([URL="http://www.tim.it/business/o38209/tariffa.do"]Alice Mobile Time[/URL]) that looks very economical for intermittent use: it appears to be €3 per month (or €7 depending on which page on the website you look at) plus €2/hr for usage - with the first month's and the first 4 hours each month free. I can't see anything about what, if any, start up cost there is to buy the dongle.

As I'm in the UK at the moment, I can't pop into a shop to check out the details but would be interested in hearing from anyone who has or has actually experienced the performance.

"moved to italiauncovered.co.uk"

I have used Onspeed for a couple of years as it was given out free by my ISP. Generally it's pretty good but you just need to be aware that some sites block access via it (e.g. the wordreference.com language forums and the UK National Lottery website) so you have to disable it temporarily. It used also to be a problem with BBC (especially for streaming video) because they could not determine which country you were in but that now seems to have been overcome.

The real issue with this is that you don't usually get any warning or error message about why you can't get into the site (wordreference being a notable exception but only after I raised it with them) so, if you ever do have such a problem, remember to try disabling Onspeed as a first possible solution.