[Wylug-help] Mobile broadband

Tue Oct 1 10:45:03 UTC 2013

Hi All,

I have a similar situation with our touring caravan.

Network coverage is quite hit and miss across all the networks, so I have a
variety of SIM cards and just see which works in a given location. 

All the networks have coverage maps, although I'm not convinced of their
accuracy.

On Tue, Oct 01, 2013 at 10:25:34AM +0100, Martyn Ranyard wrote:
> In terms of providers, only Three's One Plan seems to be the only contract
> that allows tethering and unlimited data.  That works out at about £15 per
> month sim-free (just buy a device, no point spreading the cost as you pay

Correct, but it must be in a phone and not a wifi hotspot device or dongle. A
cheap android phone with tethering ability will meet this requirement though.

Using a phone, however, means you won't be able to directly attach an external
antenna. There are passive, inductively coupled adapters for "connecting" an
external antenna but I don't know how well they work.

eg: http://www.solwise.co.uk/3g-datacard-to-antenna-adapters-adpt-024.htm

Three is 3G only, with no fallback to 2G (GPRS / Edge) for data, so you either
have 3G or nothing.

As far as antennas go, I have a 21 foot aluminium mast with a 19dB yagi
antenna. This feeds a 3G booster amplifier in the caravan to provide service to
any devices inside. You'd probably be better off with some sort of
omnidirectional antenna though (and not on a tall mast!).

> more eventually.  If three lack coverage and you want O2's coverage,
> giffgaff is the sensible option.

I use GiffGaff in my iPad and it's cheap and cheerful for low to medium usage.
500MB per month is £5 as opposed to £7.50 on Three. Coverage is OK, but you'll
only get 2G out of the major cities. 2G is OK for a bit of mail, but useless
for the web.

> Much as Orange and T-Mobile have
> "sort-of-merged" to create EE (Which I'm sure stands for Extremely

EE seems to manage good coverage in the sticks, but it is indeed expensive. I
have an EE SIM as a last resort. It's billed on usage at something stupid like
5p per MB.

> Expensive), O2 and Vodafone are creating "Cornerstone" so hopefully
> giffgaff's coverage will increase because of this. Personally if I'm

No experience on Vodafone, although I have a SIM.

T-Mobile is quite good in that you can pay for a day, week or month of access.

> *Fair use policies as I'm sure you're aware mean "we say unlimited but if
> you use a lot of data, we'll put limits on it".

Except Three's "One Plan", they genuinely mean unlimited.

One other thing to mention is that some networks proxy and/or filter the
traffic. This can be intrusive or just plain inconvenient. A subscription to a
VPN service (or a cheap VPS running OpenVPN) will circumvent any network-level
meddling provided that VPN connections aren't blocked.

Best regards,

James

> 
> Cheers,
> --
> Martyn
> 
> 
> On 1 October 2013 09:29, Christopher McLean <C.J.McLean at leeds.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> > Hi Roger,
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > Sent: 01 October 2013 01:56
> > > Subject: [Wylug-help] Mobile broadband
> > >
> > > Having retired, I'm planning to buy a narrow boat and to spend a couple
> > of years cruising the inland waterways.
> > > However, I need to remain connected!
> >
> > If you need a live-aboard sys admin, I'm happy to dig out my resume - will
> > work for beer ;)
> >
> > > Google searches suggest either a "3G data only dongle" or using a mobile
> > phone to create "a 3G hotspot" (whatever that might be). There's also a
> > firm offering a 500 quid marine water proof 'solution' that still needs a
> > 3G data-only SIM.
> > > Keeping in mind that I'll be cruising inside a steel hull with
> > relatively small windows, on which rain will inevitably fall, does anyone
> > know practical details of how I can stay on-line.
> > > Cost is, of course, a factor, but when the boat will cost 33k, *almost*
> > any cost will be in proportion.  I'm still a tyke, so unnecessary expense
> > is still to be avoided.
> >
> > I've found giffgaff to be a very cost effective provider. It's community
> > run as well. However, they piggy back on O2, YMMV compared to the coverage
> > of the big providers. That being said, I've never had an issue with them.
> >
> > Your main concern here would be the fact that you will inevitably be
> > outside of towns and other built up places. I don't think the environ of a
> > boat will play a big part (external antenna?). I'd check the coverage maps
> > of the main providers to see who has the best rural coverage. Once you've
> > decided on one, you should be able to get a 3g/hspa/4g repeater thing (no
> > idea what they are called, but they are basically a wifi access point with
> > a sim card in it).
> >
> > > Incidentally, can anyone recommend a network monitoring tool that is
> > Fedora compatible, so I can measure my current (land based) usage and
> > select an appropriate contract?
> >
> > http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Tools.html ?
> >
> > Chris
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wylug-help mailing list
> > Wylug-help at wylug.org.uk
> > https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/wylug-help
> >

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