What do yo use for wi(fi &internet

We have all upgraded with various data packages for our phones in the last six months, so between four of us we have 185GB of data per month which we can all share if needed by using the phones' hotspot connections.

Our mobile contracts are Vodafone 105GB £24 per month, Vodafone 20GB £17 per month, and Smarty (which runs on 3's network) 2 x 30GB £10 per month each.

These allowances are all available for roaming without a data cap, and I realise this would be a massive amount of internet use that normal people would never need, but with two data-hungry teenagers I can't be sure!

Prior to getting the new data packages I used a Vodafone mifi (bought for £20) when travelling in the summer with a data only sim on a 30 day rolling contract from Vodafone, so I only had to pay for two months. Last summer the data sim cost £30 for 50GB per month.
 
helen262 said:
Three on ipad no longer use the mifi
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@helen262and @wooie1958and anyone else who has had a mifi and stopped using it.
Do you stay mostly near populated places and nearly always get a signal on you phones anyway? Does it not matter much to you if you do not get a signal? Did your mifi not have an external aerial so it did not improve a poor signal much? Why are you happier not using it?
 
Derekoak said:
@helen262and @wooie1958and anyone else who has had a mifi and stopped using it.
Do you stay mostly near populated places and nearly always get a signal on you phones anyway? Does it not matter much to you if you do not get a signal? Did your mifi not have an external aerial so it did not improve a poor signal much? Why are you happier not using it?
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I don’t get it either Derek, why revert to phones when you have a mifi.
 
Derekoak said:
@helen262and @wooie1958and anyone else who has had a mifi and stopped using it.
Do you stay mostly near populated places and nearly always get a signal on you phones anyway? Does it not matter much to you if you do not get a signal? Did your mifi not have an external aerial so it did not improve a poor signal much? Why are you happier not using it?
Click to expand...

I stopped using a mifi and just use my phone as a hotspot,I'm currently touring Scotland and found it very rare to be without signal (with EE). The reason I stopped using the mifi was because I was paying for internet twice,now I pay £23 per month for 50gb and calls/texts.
 
Derekoak said:
@helen262and @wooie1958and anyone else who has had a mifi and stopped using it.
Do you stay mostly near populated places and nearly always get a signal on you phones anyway? Does it not matter much to you if you do not get a signal? Did your mifi not have an external aerial so it did not improve a poor signal much? Why are you happier not using it?
Click to expand...
We travelled extensively through France, Portugal and Spain last summer, mostly wild camping and often in very remote areas. It surprised me how good the 4G mobile coverage was almost everywhere we went. When travelling in the UK I have never had any major problem getting internet with our phones.

The reason I won’t use the mifi is purely down to not duplicating costs. I don’t use it now because connections on the phones are generally good and the data costs on phone contracts have dropped so much, for example the new Smarty sims we got recently give 30gb of data with unlimited calls and texts for £10 per month.
 
I have a 40gb data only sim home contract with three which I just take with me when we travel. 20GB month data in eu, with added go binge in uk. (£15 month) I also have a 100 GB Vodafone SIM in phone which allows me to use all the data when abroad. Unfortunately this contract ends in March and to continue would cost £40 month (£12 with discounts at moment) Vodafone have offered me an unlimited data for approx £20 but this is limited to 25GBP in Europe.Since neither have a stable internet signal in our Portuguese place, I am a bit stuck. Need to look at a signal booster or ariel to get a good signal, then look for best SIM to suit our needs. No problem with either sim when travelling in Europe or uk, just in the barn. Like a good amount in Portugal as we stream films and radio. Like the option of two networks when travelling and we aren't using it at UK home one when in the van, so it suits us.
 
Derekoak said:
@helen262and @wooie1958and anyone else who has had a mifi and stopped using it.
Do you stay mostly near populated places and nearly always get a signal on you phones anyway? Does it not matter much to you if you do not get a signal? Did your mifi not have an external aerial so it did not improve a poor signal much? Why are you happier not using it?
Click to expand...
I no longer use the mifi because having toured France portugal and spain mostly wild camping I have never had problems getting signal so see no reason to pay for another SIM card for the mifi that I don’t need
 
I use the sim card from my phone in my mifi, and a payg sim at 3p a minute in my phone whilst it is in use in the mifi. I put £10 in the payg sim a year ago and I still have £8.80 left.
So the payg card has cost me an additional £1.20. For a year. If I have to make what may be a long call I use my wife’s phone. With the mifi I get faster speeds than with the phone, and we get to watch tv on the tv, with our firestick. We also have access to our Netflix and catchup on the firestick.
 
Fisherman said:
Sharpie, I have been up the west coast of Scotland in some isolated places.
And there lots of places were my phone on 3 gets no signal, but using the mifi I have yet to fail getting a signal. I am not saying that this won’t happen in future, but to date that is the case. Also in the next year or so all suppliers will be integrating meaning your reception should be the same regardless of company you are with.
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Certainly a mifi should get a better signal, having bigger antennae inside than a phone, even better with an external antenna. It may also have a chipset capable of much higher data rates than the usual phone, if the network has the capacity and supports that (essentially by combining multiple connections). Even if you have an actual use for the higher speeds possible.

I don't yet have one, so far I've got by with just a tethered phone, if no signal I don't fret and get on with other things that don't need internet. If I really wanted to watch TV I do have a folding 60cm satellite dish, but that rarely comes out with me anymore

As for "all suppliers will be integrating" well that is not happening.

Read this for example, which also has a map showing where masts are being proposed to fill in areas of absolutely zero coverage on any network, but none have actually been built yet and the networks are not interested in putting their own equipment into them, knowing that it would be little used.

www.ispreview.co.uk

UK Mobile Operators Blamed for Scotland’s Slow 4G Infill Scheme UPDATE

The Scottish Government's £25m 4G Infill Programme, which began in March 2018 and aims to improve rural mobile coverage (mostly across the Highlands and Island
www.ispreview.co.uk www.ispreview.co.uk

It's not just Scotland, plenty of parts of North Norfolk, which I know well, where there is only patchy coverage on only one network, sometimes none at all, for a 'phone. A mifi would certainly help there. The four networks are not going to combine forces and help each other out by allowing each others' users to roam onto theirs, it's been talked about certainly, but no progress and not likely to be.

That's one of the reasons why I use twin SIMs on different networks when there, because often only one, or none, will work.

Here is the official Ofcom coverage checker

https://checker.ofcom.org.uk/mobile-coverage

Put in a postcode, ignore the first page summary, click on "map of available services, and start digging. More detailed than any of the networks' own maps.

If you can find a postcode for somewhere near where you are thinking of going, that should give you an indication of what coverage to expect there.

The days when phones had decent external aerials, and sometimes you had to wave them about outside to try to catch a signal, are long ago, but that's essentially what I'm still doing by putting my'phone in a clippy box on the roof. A mifi would surely be better than that, but my van is a tin box and the window blinds aluminised, so is close to being a Faraday cage inside.
 
V1nny said:
We have all upgraded with various data packages for our phones in the last six months, so between four of us we have 185GB of data per month which we can all share if needed by using the phones' hotspot connections.

Our mobile contracts are Vodafone 105GB £24 per month, Vodafone 20GB £17 per month, and Smarty (which runs on 3's network) 2 x 30GB £10 per month each.

These allowances are all available for roaming without a data cap, and I realise this would be a massive amount of internet use that normal people would never need, but with two data-hungry teenagers I can't be sure!

Prior to getting the new data packages I used a Vodafone mifi (bought for £20) when travelling in the summer with a data only sim on a 30 day rolling contract from Vodafone, so I only had to pay for two months. Last summer the data sim cost £30 for 50GB per month.
Click to expand...
Slight correction, Smarty cap roaming data at 20 GB, same as Three, but it is still an excellent deal. If that is a new Vodafone contract there might also be a roaming cap nowadays, worth checking.
 
Patchy signals will be a thing of the past once Elon gets all his satellites up and the "starlink" running,then you will only need one device,might be a reality in another year or so.
 
We have Vodaphone mobile broadband (Mifi) 50GB per month for £24, we get 10% off because Wife has a phone contract with them. We got the full 50GB when roaming for 4 months on our last trip in EU. Roaming applies in 48 Countries. Never had a day when we lost connectivity.
 
DnK said:
We have Vodaphone mobile broadband (Mifi) 50GB per month for £24, we get 10% off because Wife has a phone contract with them. We got the full 50GB when roaming for 4 months on our last trip in EU. Roaming applies in 48 Countries. Never had a day when we lost connectivity.
Click to expand...

Just a thought but I know someone who has the vodafone mobile broadband and they just renegotiated their contract and got 100gb for £18 or so they say. Not sure if that included VAT or not but Voda are often good to haggle with if your contracts coming up.
 
mid4did said:
I,ve had mine gaffa taped to the end of my beachcaster taped to the bike rack before now :D EE 20g a month payg is enough for my needs now .
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In years gone by when doing long term touring in Europe I used to occasionally get work to do where I had to very quickly get online and remotely connect to computers in the UK. It was a good way of topping up the touring coffers. Trouble is before mobile data was cheap or even available sometimes there was no wifi where the van was parked, even with the antenna. I would have to go off on the scooter with the laptop and the antenna and you would often find me sat in a village square farting about with the antenna trying to lock onto a free wifi spot to do the work. Raised a few eyebrows. :D

The best one was working for two hours on the shores of Lake Maggiore in Italy with my feet in the water. I never told the client where I was but every now and again a load of Italians would wonder past yabbering loudly or the ducks would start quacking and the client would ask what it was. I think I said it was a load of Italian duck specialists on their way to a conference or something like that. I sent them an invoice after with a photo of the laptop and the lake behind it attached. :D
 
barryd said:
Just a thought but I know someone who has the vodafone mobile broadband and they just renegotiated their contract and got 100gb for £18 or so they say. Not sure if that included VAT or not but Voda are often good to haggle with if your contracts coming up.
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Yeah, have been looking at this possibility however contract renewal not due till August. We wonder what the roaming situation will be post Brexit transition period. Though I suppose if we did take a new contract they would have to maintain the terms even if the situation changes. Maybe take a 24 month contract?
 
For those who have a mifi you can use that to scan for wifi networks and connect to them, obviously it's not going to be as good as the iBoost but you can get routers that you can connect external wifi and 4G antennas to, I use a Teltonika RUT955 dual sim one which works great for this and the 4G.

Regards,
Del
 
Fisherman said:
Sharpie, I have been up the west coast of Scotland in some isolated places.
And there lots of places were my phone on 3 gets no signal, but using the mifi I have yet to fail getting a signal. I am not saying that this won’t happen in future, but to date that is the case. Also in the next year or so all suppliers will be integrating meaning your reception should be the same regardless of company you are with.
Click to expand...
I supply a company that embeds the Wifi Masts now disguised as trees, the mobile operators are putting them all around lots of "rural" areas and sensitive spots.
Bloomin trees :) and you wouldnt notice them when you drive past
 
We have line of sight of such a tree out our back window. They have put it with real trees. Better than an ordinary mast I suppose. Not supplying our (3) network unfortunately. They do not seem to do deciduous ones:). They do not sway in the wind, if you cannot see that is not a tree the big fenced off noisy power supply is a giveaway.
 
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