Pay as you go backup dongle?

Is there such a thing as in the title. My phone went out over christmas so poor bb and no phone for about a week. I have dialup as backup but as the phone was out it was a no go. All the dongles seems to have a contract tied to them where you have to spend so much a month. Is there a dongle that u can just top up as and when you like? AAISP had one but cant seem to find it, but I suspect that was also a top up per month dongle.

No idea where you've been looking but I'm pretty sure all the UK mobile networks offer PAYG mobile broadband dongles.

And once you've got a dongle, if you search around there are some great longer-term deals available, eg. 12GB/12mths for £45.

Most of the PAYG offer a fixed xGB for a month,tbut that EXPIRES when you do not use it up !
NO USE for occasional / unpredictable usage !
Regards,
Martin

Thanks but what I mean is there seems to be a usage time limit but I have been on to three and they say the time limit doesnt start until you register online so that suits me.

Oh I see what you mean now.
I think the minimum top-up will be roughly £10 for 1GB (or a maximum of 30 days) for all networks.

That is a potential problem!

If your internet is down how do you register your pay-as-you-go dongle?

In reply to a post by 5km:

That is a potential problem!

If your internet is down how do you register your pay-as-you-go dongle?

I just asked this very question and the Three Online chat guy said the dongle will allow you to connect to the Three website to register the online usage so you can use it for free. In other words the dongle will work out of the box to connect to the three website for free. He better be right I will be testing.

That is how I understood it worked. Just making sure you had checked that with three.

I think the SIM itself expires if not used (after 1st registering it) for a long period. Maybe as little as 3 months and may vary with network. Im sure my 3 dongle did after a few months non use and I dont think you can just get a new SIM to replace it.

That's strange because they are sending me an extra SIM for a friend which I will keep as a spare, with the dongle.

Also this may be of interest from the Three FAQ

Pay Per Day Mobile Broadband

If you only use Mobile Broadband now and then, you can buy Pay Per Day Mobile Broadband. For just £2 per top-up, you'll get a 500MB data allowance, which could let you send around 5,000 emails and browse online for 5 hours.

Your data allowance will last until midnight the day after you buy it, if you haven't used it up before.

If you have a dongle or a MiFi device, you'll get a text alert sent to your dashboard telling you that you've nearly used up your data allowance. If you've got an iPad, we can't send you an alert right now, so check My3 where we'll keep you updated.

Once you've used up all your data, we'll automatically re-direct you to My3 where you can buy another top-up if you need it.

How can I buy a £2 Pay Per Day Mobile Broadband top-up?

* Go to My3, either on your computer or phone
* If you buy more than one top-up, your second top-up will be waiting in queue and will only be activated once you've finished your first one
* The minimum top-up voucher you can buy in one of our 3Stores is £10. You can use this to buy the £2 top-up from My3. The remaining balance of £8 will stay on your account. You could use it to buy four more day passes, or, convert the whole £10 voucher, which will last five days.
* You can pay for your top-up on My3 by using a Credit/ Debit card, top-up voucher or Cash credit on your account.

Bit expensive way to get online but when the net is down or just buy a 30 day £10 top up. Bit silly if the SIM card expires.

Edited by Banger (Fri 28-Jan-11 02:04:15)

Once you've used up all your data, we'll automatically re-direct you to My3 where you can buy another top-up if you need it.

True.

But, depending on your bank, you might need another Internet connection to allow the connection to your bank's security system.

I can not re-ativate my 3 dongle without using another Internet connection. (although dial-up will do)

Tim,

You have an incoming PM

In reply to a post by Sandgrounder:

Once you've used up all your data, we'll automatically re-direct you to My3 where you can buy another top-up if you need it.

True.

But, depending on your bank, you might need another Internet connection to allow the connection to your bank's security system.

I can not re-ativate my 3 dongle without using another Internet connection. (although dial-up will do)

That's annoying because my Visa card required verification so I wonder if that would work or not.

Vodafone (via YES telecom) offer a £5 a month contract with 2 days use per month included. If you want more days than this, they charge about £2 a day I think.

Not quite PAYG, but quite a cheap alternative.

Thanks, Cuthbei

Thanks Bob.

Just had a thought. If my router is disconnected but other computers are connected by router switch and plug the dongle into one computer on the LAN network via ethernet will other computers on the LAN see the dongle or does the dongle need to be connected to each computers USB port in order to surf the web. Hope that makes sense.

The other computers (by default) would not 'see' the internet connection provided by a USB dongle on another computer.

You would need to set-up internet connection sharing.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Just had a thought. If my router is disconnected but other computers are connected by router switch and plug the dongle into one computer on the LAN network via ethernet will other computers on the LAN see the dongle or does the dongle need to be connected to each computers USB port in order to surf the web. Hope that makes sense.

As per 5km's post, ICS is a cheap/free solution to share the connection from the dongle ... but it can be a fairly inelegant / manual / quirky solution to set up for a "quick-changeover" for backup-connection purposes.

I'd personally recommend one of these Zoom-4501-Routers as a better solution IF you reckon it's worth (to you) the £40 for a Full Ethernet + WiFi & Instant-Automatic-Changeover backup solution :-
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/174406

I use this with the solution we discussed via PM ... It's excellent, and also gives me the added advantage of using the same entire dongle+router system for FULL Mobile-Broadband-Wifi when we're away fron home in the car or caravan or on holiday (all that's needed is to add the "in-car power adaptor").

Edited by deleted (Sat 29-Jan-11 00:22:28)

Thanks for the information Bob and 5km. I did find some software when googling about that shared USB over ethernet but it wasn't clear if it was free or time limited. It was limited to two USB devices but I think ICS may be the best for the backup/cheap solution I had in mind.

ICS works well for an interim solution.. At my current place of work, O2 have almost no signal, but my Vodafone dongle works great, so I setup ICS on my laptop to surf the net on my iPhone..

Dongle arrived today. Couldn't get online so had to call tech support. Have used the free Mobile SIM to test and it was a case of removing software and drivers and re-installing to get going seems ok now to test on a Win2k laptop.

I have a t-mobile internet broadband dongle that has a 3 gb download limit per month but after just 10 days and no downloading at all the allowance has run out and I feel that I have been conned.I'm getting a screen up saying fair use iv exceeded my limit but after doing the majority of last month on the cap i avoided downloading this time. i pay 15 quid 4 the month and i expect to get more than a couple of days of internet the only thing i really use is the farmville application for facebook but i have a number of friends with the same bdongle and price plan as me who use the same application and this doesnt happen to them.... not happy AT ALL..... any advice please thanks christina