Best Wireless Dongle For Wiring From Pitchside

Rovers_Andy

Rovers_Andy

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Andy
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Can any sports shooters recommend which network to use for a wireless dongle and do you prefer Contract or Pay As You Go? Having looked in the shop this morning Vodafone and 3 seem to be the best of the bunch

Thanks

Andy
 
I've got an o2 dongle which rarely fails me... have it for next to nothing though as it's on a staff tariff with my phone contract :)
 
I've also got an O2 one, on PAYG, (although if I was thinking I'd have got one on a different network seeing as both my iPhone and home broadband are on O2), if you aren't going to be using it that much it works out cheaper than a contract one.
 
I wouldn't go with Vodafone. I find their coverage terrible and have only managed to find 3G coverage with my dongle three or four times ever!

I travel around the country a lot and regularly have this problem.

I believe 3, although not personal experience, have some of the best 3G coverage out there.

DB
 
Vodaphone are the most commonly used pitch side but that has it's own problems as the network grinds to a halt at half time :)

I use T-mobile and it hasn't let me down yet.
 
Thanks for the quick replies, hadn't though of T-Mobile. Will have a look at them tomorrow.

Is that PAYG or contract Dan? how many GB are you getting?

Thanks

Andy
 
No problem! :D I think they're mostly consumer packages.. providers might do better business deals but for the usage it probably wouldn't be worth it :)
 
I have a monthly contract with T-Mobile but there is no minimum term so I can cancel it anytime if want to change.

T-Mobile and 3 are merging at the end of the year so coverage for both should be even better.
 
Cheers Dan, T-Mobile and 3 look the best out of the deals on the link Phil posted. Going to start practising Wiring from pitchside now, then if/when i need to do it for a pic editor im used to it :D
 
TheBionicDan said:
T-Mobile and 3 are merging at the end of the year so coverage for both should be even better.
Click to expand...

T Mobile and Orange are merging.

3 are pretty poor and if you do a search, you'll find a LOT of dissatisfied customers, T Mobile I find to be really good, you also get free T Mobile wifi hotspot access too.
 
Dman said:
T Mobile and Orange are merging.

3 are pretty poor and if you do a search, you'll find a LOT of dissatisfied customers, T Mobile I find to be really good, you also get free T Mobile wifi hotspot access too.
Click to expand...

Apologies, muppetry on my behalf.
 
Ive never worked pitchside as a tog with a laptop and mobile broadband but spent plenty of time inside football grounds, both business and pleasure and I have to say that on both 02 and Voda the availability of 3G is at times non existent. Using my iPhone to access anything can be a total waste of time and when I used a Blackberry it was the same. You have to expect it really with so many people in a ground and the majority having a mobile phone.

Anyway my reason for posting is to say I wouldnt be too confident of either getting a connection at all or if you do a painstakingly slow one, so one of the lesser common networks like T-Mobile or Three might be a better shout
 
I use 3 from pitch side although my mate uses O2 with more success in some places for example at the O2 arena for gymnastics last week......inside job me reckons!
 
Not sure if you've got this sorted yet Rovers_Andy?

I'm on 3 (PAYG) and T-Mobile (Contract)...

3 have a decent offer at the moment of £15 /month for 15Gb.
Vodafone (and T-Mobile, I believe) are £15 /month for 3Gb.

3 seems to be hit-and-miss for happy customers... I've never had any problems, neither have my friends. But I have dealt with a fair few people who say they don't get on with 3, bad experiences with contracts with them (early days when they were phone-only)...

3 mobile have approximately 95% coverage, especially in towns and cities (where stadia are located), and their network is tailored to 3G (i.e. mobile internet) usage.

Vodafone and T-Mobile offer the quickest mobile internet speeds (up to 7.2Mbps) at the moment.

If you look at PAYG, you'll tend to get a lot less for your money... £15 for 1GB for example on Vodafone.
 
Does the football club not let you connect to their wireless connection?

It's in their interests.
 
Andy,

I bought one of those £5 "3" dongles when they were on offer but there are no snow leopard drivers so I can't use it yet. If you want to borrow it and just give it a try for a week or two then just let me know.
 
Rovers_Andy said:
I'd like to take you up on that Cowasaki, thats a very kind offer :clap: Thankyou
Click to expand...

No probs you can collect it it you like from bamber bridge. Its sat here still in it's box next to me. There is only about £1 credit on it so you'll have to stick some credit on it but it'll be your credit so you just use it.
 
I use the THREE.CO.UK dongle .. you just have to remember to convert your credit to broadband :)
 
TheBionicDan said:
I have a monthly contract with T-Mobile but there is no minimum term so I can cancel it anytime if want to change.

T-Mobile and 3 are merging at the end of the year so coverage for both should be even better.
Click to expand...

3 and T-mobile have been in the process of consolidating their network for the past 12 months or so. Completion is next year last I heard, the effect of which is to effectively double the number of cell sites. This is on conjunction of the backhaul network to support increased data throughput.

I used to have a 3 dongle from as I was an employee.....worked great. Now I've left I've just got a prepaid 12GB one which I'm writing on now as the g/f is driving down the M3 :)

Bear in mind that if you're pitchside with a lot of other togs all uploading to the same cell, you're better off being on whatever network they're not on.

The 3 £15 a month for 15GB contract deal is so far ahead of any of the competition, you'd be silly to go elsewhere if you needed that amount of data. PRetty sure each person on that contract loses 3 a load of money still...oops :)
 
If you have a windows mobile phone (not sure of any others) you can download some sort of application to turn your mobile phone into a wireless router. Provided that you already have an internet package on your mobile phone you can then surf the net using ** tariff.

I have a HTC Touch Diamond 2 with an Orange sim card and and have used the phone as a wireless router a few times to sort the inlaws computer out.

Might save yourselfs getting 2 contracts?
 
I use a 3 dongle and it has only ever let me down once (during Cardiff vs Newcastle when 3 signal was down in whole of Wales) It has recently got a lot quicker, and I can back up what Dan said about Vodafone. A lot of guys use them at matches, and therefore it gets a lot slower when everyone is wiring. Or if you have a blackberry/iphone tether it to your pc/mac and use the 3g connection off that, as I intend to do when I pick up an iphone after Christmas.
 
I bought a T-Mobile PAYG one in the end, once i got it setup properly (it does help to set it to 3G and not GPRS :cuckoo:) it seems to be pretty quick. Will have to test it again on Tuesday night at PNE Vs Derby.
 
kieranmcmanus said:
I use a 3 dongle and it has only ever let me down once (during Cardiff vs Newcastle when 3 signal was down in whole of Wales) It has recently got a lot quicker, and I can back up what Dan said about Vodafone. A lot of guys use them at matches, and therefore it gets a lot slower when everyone is wiring. Or if you have a blackberry/iphone tether it to your pc/mac and use the 3g connection off that, as I intend to do when I pick up an iphone after Christmas.
Click to expand...

Typical, another iPhone user! You'll end up looking like a journalist or (shudder) a PR man.

I use Orange which has had a lot of stick from other press togs, but I've never had a problem with it slowing down...perhaps because no-one else likes it.
 
jamesb84 said:
Typical, another iPhone user! You'll end up looking like a journalist or (shudder) a PR man.

I use Orange which has had a lot of stick from other press togs, but I've never had a problem with it slowing down...perhaps because no-one else likes it.
Click to expand...

Good shout on steering clear of vodafone, partly why i went for t-mobile as i havent seen many togs using them, they all seem to use vodafone so 5-10 togs are all trying to wire on the one network :cuckoo:
 
manc said:
I use 3 from pitch side although my mate uses O2 with more success in some places for example at the O2 arena for gymnastics last week......inside job me reckons!
Click to expand...


;-) Thats me then!

I use O2 PAYG, and it also means I get free access to O2 WiFi Cloud services which are at several major arenas.

for very quick jobs, I just connect my mobile phone via USB.

I am considering a MiFi device though, so I can wire direct from the camera (with WFT)...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/14/me_and_my_mifi/
 
swaffs said:
I am considering a MiFi device though, so I can wire direct from the camera (with WFT)...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/14/me_and_my_mifi/
Click to expand...


I saw this on the BBC last week and thought it would be great for my line of work...Onboard a ship in harbour needing to email back to the office.

I have been to two "3" shops (Plymouth and Chester) for a demo and attempted to connect but failed misserably. I'd be interested to hear how you get on.
 
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