# MIFI .. Worth every penny .. Three SIM



## QFour (May 1, 2017)

Bought a MIFI unit .. TP-Link just after Christmas with a couple of 24 Gb ( Thee ) SIM cards. We have used it most days for surfing but not downloaded any large files. Using just over 1 Gb a week. Works a treat on the move and think we have only had one spot where we lost the signal. Very useful for Tripadvisor. Some of the site reviews in tha ACIS book are very misrepresented. Also used it for access to bank accounts.

In Bolnuevo at the moment. South of Alicante.


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## Wooie1958 (May 1, 2017)

Our Huawei Mi-Fi and the prepaid Three data sim worked a treat whilst away recently however ....................

We was very dissappointed by our phones roaming partners in France, F-Bouygues Telecom, Free and Orange-F who`s service was rubbish compared to previous years  :mad2:

We manually switched roaming partners several times to try and achieve the best service but to no avail     :sad:

Making calls and sending / receiving texts was OK but trying to do anything on the internet with the phones was nigh on impossible


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## rugbyken (May 1, 2017)

bought the amazon internet with legs deal last year 24gb for 24 months £28 got two of them as they seemed such a good deal now it's £29:80 for 12gb it worked for 6 months in france Portugal &spain used 17gb of one to date, would definetly buy again if offer comes up or even at the new price still worth thinking about,


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## Deleted member 58274 (May 1, 2017)

*Mifi*

We've had a mifi box for nearly two years now, got a great deal from EE (50gb/month £24) and so scrapped our landline on the strength of it. That immediately offsets £17/18 wasted on a landline when we are not home for weeks at a time anyway. (We had been giving our mobile no.s as contact for a good while previously to render the landline useless) So, we have internet/mobile phone contact wherever we are and we love it.
We unlocked the box so it takes any data sim so when abroad can use the best local sim such as the Portugal NOS sim that I and others have mentioned on here (unlimited data for €1 a day...mega !!) France now has a similar deal.
Wonder what will happen in June when roaming charges are supposed to end....have heard various stories whereby they will cap the usage either gig-wise or time-wise. Anyone know the latest....Maja


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## Canalsman (May 1, 2017)

Wooie1958 said:


> We was very dissappointed by our phones roaming partners in France, F-Bouygues Telecom, Free and Orange-F who`s service was rubbish compared to previous years  :mad2:
> 
> We manually switched roaming partners several times to try and achieve the best service but to no avail     :sad:
> 
> Making calls and sending / receiving texts was OK but trying to do anything on the internet with the phones was nigh on impossible



I have had the same experience on my recent long trip. Spain and Portugal were equally bad.

Apparently the issue lies not with the service providers abroad but with 3.

Data requests are routed back to the UK where 3 'manages' the data traffic. So no matter what the capability of the local connection it's 3 that controls it remotely. It has definitely been worse this past Winter than previous Winters.

At times it was unusable for updating the POIs and I found it immensely frustrating.

I wonder how things will pan out after June? The theory is that our devices when used abroad will function just as local devices do ...


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## Wooie1958 (May 1, 2017)

POI Admin said:


> I have had the same experience on my recent long trip. Spain and Portugal were equally bad.
> 
> Apparently the issue lies not with the service providers abroad but with 3.
> 
> ...





I`ve been with Three for several years now and it`s always been great to the point where the wife came over to Three as well from EE.

Last year was fine and most of the time it wasn`t worth starting up the Mi-Fi and getting the laptop out so long as we could do what was needed on the phones.

This year it was completely the other way around with the phones being useless and so that meant the Mi-Fi and laptop came out more.

One thing we did notice is that for some strange reason the calls back to any UK landline and mobile numbers ( no matter what network ) were coming off the free 2000 Three to Three minutes we have instead of the normal monthly minutes allowance   :rolleyes2:


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## Biggarmac (May 1, 2017)

My virgin mobile has not worked properly in Spain nor is it working properly in France.  I can ring out (at 4pence a minute) but when anyone rings me they are told that I am not available.  I have been battling virgin since mid feb.  Bought a free.fr sim for a spare phone and getting great service.  10€ for sim and 19.99€ a month.  100 minutes of international calls.  Lots of french minutes.  Texts and up to 30gb per month internet.
When I get back to uk in June I will be contacting virgin about their abismal service.


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## toasty (May 1, 2017)

Wooie1958 said:


> Our Huawei Mi-Fi and the prepaid Three data sim worked a treat whilst away recently however ....................
> 
> We was very dissappointed by our phones roaming partners in France, F-Bouygues Telecom, Free and Orange-F who`s service was rubbish compared to previous years  :mad2:
> 
> ...


Is this a problem even if you are using Three's `Feel at Home` add on?


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## 2cv (May 1, 2017)

POI Admin said:


> I have had the same experience on my recent long trip. Spain and Portugal were equally bad.
> 
> Apparently the issue lies not with the service providers abroad but with 3.
> 
> ...



That's very interesting. I find that my 3 mifi which is on feel at home performs really badly when in the US. I had just put it down to them having poor 3 and 4g coverage there, but maybe this explains it.


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## Clunegapyears (May 1, 2017)

*Three 12 gb limit*



maja07 said:


> We've had a mifi box for nearly two years now, got a great deal from EE (50gb/month £24) and so scrapped our landline on the strength of it. That immediately offsets £17/18 wasted on a landline when we are not home for weeks at a time anyway. (We had been giving our mobile no.s as contact for a good while previously to render the landline useless) So, we have internet/mobile phone contact wherever we are and we love it.
> We unlocked the box so it takes any data sim so when abroad can use the best local sim such as the Portugal NOS sim that I and others have mentioned on here (unlimited data for €1 a day...mega !!) France now has a similar deal.
> Wonder what will happen in June when roaming charges are supposed to end....have heard various stories whereby they will cap the usage either gig-wise or time-wise. Anyone know the latest....Maja



 Three have a 12 GB limit for roaming. We know this, as I bragged about still being able to use three after nearly 6 months in Euroland, and they cut us off next day and two weeks before we returned to the UK. When I rang and spoke to one of their operators, I was told that they have a 12 gigabyte limit for the 12 months as it costs them so much more money. We are currently in the Republic of Ireland and it seems to be working here.   I suspect it will not work when we go back to Euroland in July.

Whilst I was on the phone, I asked what would happen when the additional roaming charges were supposed to be abolished. I was told that Three has not decided decided yet.


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## iampatman (May 1, 2017)

maja07 said:


> We've had a mifi box for nearly two years now, got a great deal from EE (50gb/month £24) and so scrapped our landline on the strength of it. That immediately offsets £17/18 wasted on a landline when we are not home for weeks at a time anyway. (We had been giving our mobile no.s as contact for a good while previously to render the landline useless) So, we have internet/mobile phone contact wherever we are and we love it.
> We unlocked the box so it takes any data sim so when abroad can use the best local sim such as the Portugal NOS sim that I and others have mentioned on here (unlimited data for €1 a day...mega !!) *France now has a similar deal.*
> Wonder what will happen in June when roaming charges are supposed to end....have heard various stories whereby they will cap the usage either gig-wise or time-wise. Anyone know the latest....Maja



Hi Maja,

Thanks for the info on the Portuguese SIM. Who is offering a similar deal in France?

Cheers,

Pat


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## Byronic (May 1, 2017)

Wouldn't be surprised if 3 strangulates data use on the MIFI whilst being used overseas on FAH because it senses 'tethering' and applies the restriction. I rarely found any problem using 3 data/phone contract SIM directly to my Phablet, in Spain and France over a recent 5 month period. I also wonder if the local provider doesn't apply less favourable streams to non direct customers than it does to its regular customers.
Am I getting paranoid!!


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## yeoblade (May 1, 2017)

Byronic said:


> Wouldn't be surprised if 3 strangulates data use on the MIFI whilst being used overseas on FAH because it senses 'tethering' and applies the restriction. I rarely found any problem using 3 data/phone contract SIM directly to my Phablet, in Spain and France over a recent 5 month period. *I also wonder if the local provider doesn't apply less favourable streams to non direct customers than it does to its regular customers.*
> Am I getting paranoid!!



Don't they already, I was getting 70meg with a local SIM in Austria recent and a pathetic speed on my three FAH, and tethering was picked up and they disconnected me very quickly.
In Germany next week and am not holding out to getting a usable speed


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## Deleted member 58274 (May 2, 2017)

*France sim*



iampatman said:


> Hi Maja,
> 
> Thanks for the info on the Portuguese SIM. Who is offering a similar deal in France?
> 
> ...



Hi, it's "free.fr" ....what I actually read was a phone sim which included 30gb data in the bundle, but one would hope a dedicated data sim deal for mifi box will follow soon. Maja


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## Deleted member 58274 (May 2, 2017)

*French sim*



iampatman said:


> Hi Maja,
> 
> Thanks for the info on the Portuguese SIM. Who is offering a similar deal in France?
> 
> ...



Ah....search this on this site......SIM card for use in France for 3 months....Maja


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## Canalsman (May 2, 2017)

Byronic said:


> I also wonder if the local provider doesn't apply less favourable streams to non direct customers than it does to its regular customers.
> Am I getting paranoid!!



According to my research that isn't the case. Why would they need to do that if the UK provider does it anyway, presumably to reduce their costs?


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## Canalsman (May 2, 2017)

maja07 said:


> Ah....search this on this site......SIM card for use in France for 3 months....Maja



Don't forget that from 15 June this is probably irrelevant.

See here:

https://www.wildcamping.co.uk/forums/motorhome-chat/61470-no-more-roaming-charges-15-june.html


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## Deleted member 58274 (May 2, 2017)

POI Admin said:


> Don't forget that from 15 June this is probably irrelevant.
> 
> See here:
> 
> https://www.wildcamping.co.uk/forums/motorhome-chat/61470-no-more-roaming-charges-15-june.html



Hi Chris, yes I'm aware of this but will host countries facilitate a full 4g stream to our uk sims I wonder ?
Maja


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## Byronic (May 2, 2017)

POI Admin said:


> According to my research that isn't the case. Why would they need to do that if the UK provider does it anyway, presumably to reduce their costs?



Perhaps they both like a bite of the cherry. With priority taken by the source provider at that time of connection.


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## Canalsman (May 2, 2017)

maja07 said:


> Hi Chris, yes I'm aware of this but will host countries facilitate a full 4g stream to our uk sims I wonder ?
> Maja



If you read the linked FAQ item it says that all SIMs have to be treated in the same way i.e. no discrimination is permitted.

So the answer to your question is yes ...


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