Three, O2 mobile broadband comparison

(UK) If you think all you need is just to check email, facebook, occationally write some blog and make calls over Skype, it's easy to think mobile broadband might not be a bad idea, especially if your landline doesnt exist for one reason or another (like a stupid tenent has cut it off).

Wrong.

I am not living in a remote hole in London and I have checked my coverage on each providers' site, I am suppose to have "good/excellent coverage". Unfortunately, the connection is minimal and interrupted in each case.

I have used 2 mobile dongles, one from Three and one from O2, here is my experience for the past 6 months or so (click on the table for a clearer view):



A note on return policy - it is really poor on both as you have to proof that you are actually having persistent connection problem while they are busy trying to blame it on maintainence work.


O2 Driver Issue on Vista:
I believe O2 connection manager is not really compatible with Vista build (I read about the vista vs o2 connection manager compatibility issue on a few forums but O2 seem to have dismissed the issue). To begin with, O2 driver has installed several times on each of my COM ports... It's not ok but less fustrating if installing the driver everytime will solve the problem... BUT, the situation has deterioate a lot lately - "O2 connection manager has stopped working" happens to me at least 3 times in the evening lately. When O2 connection manager crashes like that, you might not get cut off immediately... however it is best to unplug the dongle and restart the O2 connection manager - because if you don't, it might stop your machine from shutting down instead. Luckily, I find that the issue can be worked around by using your computer's local connection manager (as oppose to O2 connection manager) - If you happen to have a Dell machine, there is a work around to the issue - look in Dell Support Center, there is a "Get connected" function there, it works perfectly fine with your dongle plugged in but without starting up the crash happy O2 connection manager.