t-mobile

We use our t-mobile phone as a modem for internet access. At each mooring site, we record the signal type and quality against the GPS location so that if we are back in the area again in the future, we will have an idea as to the best place to moor for good internet access.

We have found that signal quality can vary considerably in the space of just a matter of feet. In the past, we have managed to improve the reception from OK GPRS to good 3g just by moving twenty feet or so.

We pay £15 per month on a contract that gives us 3GBytes data transfer.

Update 03-July-2009.

We switched over to a t-mobile USB dongle modem a few days ago and so far, the results have been good. Bandwidth is always at least as good as it was through the mobile phone and in most cases much better. Would not now like to revert back to using the phone as a modem again.

Update 24th October 2009

Got so fed up with the very poor t-mobile internet reception while moored at Uxbridge that we went out and bought a Vodafone Pay as You Go dongle. Vodafone seems to have better coverage but it costs a lot more than our t-mobile contract. We are paying £15 for 1GByte data transfer for the Vodafone dongle. The good thing about the Vodafone dongle is that any credit you have 'on account' doesn't run out at the end of the month as it does with some of the other phone companies.

All Material Copyright © 2009 Ernie Williams