Mifi

[Cwoods1405]

i am contemplating buying a payg 3 mifi to use travelling around France later in the year. I wondered if anyone can give me some feedback on how good they are? I am aware that this will depend on signal strength and I have looked at their coverage ( which looks pretty good) but want to try and find out what the reality is if possible. Will obviously use here as well when my Tesco data fails! I did try looking for relevant threads but I'm not very good at doing that sorry and didn't get much back

 

[GrannyJen]

I have 3 MiFi.

Reception in France is generally excellent. No roaming charges either.

I find position in the van sometimes helps. When stationary I find up in the pop top where the flexi light is, power cable wound around the flexi light to help prevent the wifi falling to the floor, is the best place.

Travelling I often leave it plugged in to the kitchen side and popped into the rear seat pocket. Do not travel in France with it on the dashboard. Gendarmes can get ever so slightly upset if they mistake it for a radar detector. Being constantly pulled over can be severely detrimental to one's speed of travel

As a bonus, my 3 MiFi is excellent in the UK as well, including the Scottish Highlands where vodafone often failed.

 

[Cwoods1405]

That's excellent thank you very much

 

[BerndRos]

They are good and in fact I use one constantly when out here in Portugal.

You can get PAYG in France from various providers, or even take a '3UK' with you as it will work there using your UK plan.

 

[2into1]

Consider buying a sim free unit. Even though you'll likely concentrate your spend on a single provider, I carry a selection of 99p cards from every supplier (on the tills at supermarkets) to get me out of trouble (such as the need to respond to a business email, or find a campsite......, obviously not for watching films).

 

[Borris]

Please tell me that I am not alone? I thought that Mifi was that "sweet little bunny" on childrens TV!

I appear to have been completely left behind by all of the modern techie comms stuff. Reading the communications options in the new California brochure is like deciphering some form of foriegn code but it appears that everyone else seems to know what it all does and how it works.

To give an indication of my level of technical sophistication, I bought my wife a new smart phone last October to replace her old coal fired brick. Since then she has rarely put the damn thing down. Unfortunately, she insisted that I also had to have one "just in case". Well, last week, after six months of ownership, I made my first phone call, not without some difficulty I must add. I did this as I discovered that I might loose the £30 credit if I didn't make the odd call from time to time. So I phoned Mrs B to check it worked and got her "mail box" even though I could see her from where I was! She couldn't hear her phone as it was buried amongst all of the many essential items within the depths of her vast handbag!

So, what's this Luddite been using his state of the art smart phone for in all of this time? I hear you ask. Well if I have remembered where I left it and to charge it up, I almost exclusively use it for going on the forum whilst waiting for Mrs B to finish one of her many shopping expeditions to Sainsbury's.

However, being completely serious for a moment my question is that, whilst I accept that some people need to maintain communications for work and other commitments, does this modern obsession with maintaining communications enhance or detract from the original VW camper van sense of freedom and adventure?

For me at least, having spent my working life strapped to a radio pager and having had to constantly maintain a comms link whilst on duty, freedom for me is ditching all of that. I haven't even bothered to link the new smart phone to our Cali's entertainment system.

 

[Stoneybroke]

My phone and contract allows tethering, in other words I can turn my phone into a WiFi hotspot, much like the mifi, so I can use tablet or laptop. Just wondering what the advantage of mifi is over tethering?

 

[Archie]

We bought a 3 mifi a couple of years ago and it has been great generally other than being a pain to top up at the start of each season as we always forget how to do it over the winter!
However both me and my wife now have iPhones that can act as personal hotspots so I imagine we will use these from now on ( especially when mine is a works phone so costs nothing).
We don't generally use the Internet much when away - it's about the only time we will buy a weekend newspaper, but having 13 and 10 year old daughters there would be a mutiny if they couldn't have at least an hour a day
Also good for checking the weather......

 

[Cwoods1405]

The main reason for getting a mifi for me is so I will have the ability to use data in France ( or the uk when mine fails) In a nutshell I can send messages, pictures emails and hopefully make calls via the Internet and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg! I will be sticking with the 3 network because they allow you to use your data package in certain counties and that means no roaming charges! For me having access tothe internet is really useful as im not very organised

 

[Dottie]

I think a mifi allows several advices, whereas the phone tethering is for one....?
I have an o2 contract for mine which I start in summer and stop in the autumn....the idea was to be able to work from my vw but I'll have to learn where the good spots are....tried from North Berick and had no signal!

 

[Stoneybroke]

I think a mifi allows several advices, whereas the phone tethering is for one....?

Seems to depend on the phone

 

[GrannyJen]

My phone supplier is vodafone.

If I used my phone for data in France the roaming costs would be prohibitive. On top of that the extended data contracts for a vodafone 'phone contract are far more expensive than my MiFi Data contract with 3G.

3G I pay contract £15 pm and have all the data that I can use, Vodafone I would use £15 in a few hours in France.

Now that roaming charges are bring abolished in the EU it is something to look at again this Summer, should we still be in the EU. One less device to worry about.

 

[Stoneybroke]

My phone supplier is vodafone.

If I used my phone for data in France the roaming costs would be prohibitive. On top of that the extended data contracts for a vodafone 'phone contract are far more expensive than my MiFi Data contract with 3G.

3G I pay contract £15 pm and have all the data that I can use, Vodafone I would use £15 in a few hours in France.

Now that roaming charges are bring abolished in the EU it is something to look at again this Summer, should we still be in the EU. One less device to worry about.

Good point, I was only think UK...

 

[MattBW]

I've been with three for about 6 years and really rate them for data. They are one of the best for the internet (although in recent months in the UK I've noticed the service getting a bit slower). You can roam in 18 countries at no extra cost and use your allowances. http://www.three.co.uk/Support/Roaming_and_International

Their customer service is terrible though and I've never needed it until this year. I use a 3 mifi 3g dongle which stopped working when they changed their tariffs and although they took the money still cut my service off.

The dongles are pretty cheap these days, I would agree, get a network free one which will give you more freedom later and you will save money on a sim only deal too.

However I did discover when trying to renew that it was far cheaper to upgrade my phone package and I now get 12gb a month for £17 inc calls and texts which I can tether from. Its just not worth getting a sim now for data as well at that price. Wifi batteries last about 4 hours of use and longer on standby so there isn't any battery advantage really either.

 

[Spotlight Kid]

However I did discover when trying to renew that it was far cheaper to upgrade my phone package and I now get 12gb a month for £17 inc calls and texts which I can tether from. Its just not worth getting a sim now for data as well at that price. Wifi batteries last about 4 hours of use and longer on standby so there isn't any battery advantage really either.

You do realise that there is a 1GB a month data limit when tethering?

 

[MattBW]

I did check when I signed up. My new contract is the full 12gb is tethered, its only all you can eat data that has a 1gb limit I understand.

 

[MattBW]

here is the info depends on sign up date but limited data can use all of their allowance, unlimited depends on sign up date.

http://www.3g.co.uk/tethering.html

 

[Dottie]

Do you get as good a signal from tethering as opposed to a mifi?

 

[2into1]

Do you get as good a signal from tethering as opposed to a mifi?

I'm friends with a couple who sell this gear to the camping community. They tell me the antenna in a mifi is several times as large than that is most phones. Quite how that translates to the ability to pull down a signal - I'm not sure (although mine came with a 5"x3" window mount plug in antenna option for when I'm struggling).

 

[briwy]

I guess that depends on the phone/mifi unit.
Our mifi unit seems to pick up a signal better than my phone, Galaxy S3 or the other halfs S5. All using Giffgaff SIMS. I like the Giffgaff sims as there is no time limit on the data which I found there was with 3Mobile so we either ran out or wasted money topping up before the end of the month. Is that still the case?