Viable Internet access everywhere you go
I saw an advert recently that Vodafone has started a flat rate plan for their 3G datacards. The ad said £45 a month but the price plan says £52.88. And it works in Linux. At the moment I use my computers either at home or at work so £52.88 is a bit steep for the odd occasion when I take my laptop somewhere but if you’re a contractor, it becomes a lot more attractive, especially if you have it instead of broadband at home. But then again 384kb/s vs. 8mb/s, would you really want to? Now where are those 4G cards…
Update: Just saw the ad again, which still says it’s only £45 a month, and the small print says ‘1GB fair use limit’. So it’s not unlimited at all, it’s a 1GB plan. Dodgy advertising if you ask me.
January 19th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
I am contracting at the moment and I can tell you that 52.88 GBP is not attractive at all. I either work at home or on site and both have places have access to broadband. As you said, the bandwidth is an issue too. Having said all of that there are a few occasions where it would be useful. For example, the other day I was in a meeting doing a presentation and needed Internet access. As it happens Internet access was available but only for authorized machines. Thankfully we were able to use an authorized machine to do the demo. If I had needed to use my own laptop I would have been screwed. This is where a data card would have come in handy. Besides, I don’t want to be connected all the time!
January 19th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Isn’t that about the same as you charge for half an hour’s work? The main reason I thought it would be good is to make my laptop actually portable. If where I’m going doesn’t have an Internet connection, I won’t bother bringing my laptop. Actually I can’t be bothered to carry my laptop anywhere so it’s a moot point.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
I agree, it would make your laptop totally portable. Does the 52.88 allow unlimited bandwidth or is there a cap on how much you can download etc? I know some phone companies offer something around 5MB transfer limit for Blackberry for example.
And you’re getting no comment about my fees
January 20th, 2006 at 10:47 am
The plan is called ‘Vodafone Data Unlimited’ and they say unlimited, so I guess it’s unlimited. But having seen various broadband deals I can understand the caution. Another quick look doesn’t show any gotcha clauses.
April 18th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
[…] This is the first of a two part post on mobile Internet access. I’ve looked at it before but having an unlimited 3G datacard from Vodafone (actually it looks like 1GB/month fair use limit) is just too expensive for the limited travel I do. Having been at Heathrow airport on Friday evenings it looks like Blackberries are the way to go. But frankly I don’t want to carry something else around, nor do I want to have another suscription. My phone seems capable to do everything so I figure why not use it to check my email? […]