O2 4g wingle E8278

Just got one of these from o2 and even though my coverage checker says I am in a 2g only area and that is all my iphone 5s will pick up I can get 4g on the wingle at approx. 18Mbps. Not bad as the mast is 8 miles away on top of the hill in Shaftesbury Dorset.

So rural communities should benefit from 4g at 800mhz .

You mean this USB device

Once the 700 MHz band rolls out and devices use it too, then even further distances may be possible.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

You mean this USB device

Got one a few months ago when we took out a 6 month lease on a flat in Liverpool. Thanks to the incompetence of the letting agent, my plans for getting broadband in place, which I needed for my work, got completely screwed up and I was left high and dry. Went straight out and bought one of these and it absolutely saved the situation.

By no means the cheapest solution, it nonetheless worked very well and the O2 coverage in that area was more than adequate even though the map showed it as marginal; easily 17Mb download indoors - wish my ADSL was at home was as good! After using the 3GB that came with the package I bought a further 5GB, and then switched to Giffgaff goodybags as needed. (Giffgaff operates on the O2 network.)

You do need to check out the costs first, but these can be an absolute lifesaver.

In reply to a post by adamtemp:

Just got one of these from o2 and even though my coverage checker says I am in a 2g only area and that is all my iphone 5s will pick up I can get 4g on the wingle at approx. 18Mbps. Not bad as the mast is 8 miles away on top of the hill in Shaftesbury Dorset.
So rural communities should benefit from 4g at 800mhz .

Yes, you should get the signal on your iPhone 5s. Its possible there is a closer 3G or 2G signal that the phone is selecting for voice calls.

I believe this is the same device as the EE Buzzard (sold as "in car wifi"), and a few days ago bought one - it seems to pick up a far stronger 3G signal than mobiles manage and the light goes to the light blue (or cyan as o2's instructions call it), which according to the O2 instructions is 4G signal, but the EE instructions claim it is "3G+ or 4G".

Not activated the sim yet as I don't believe I'm in a 4G area but another mast went live a few weeks back with coverage ending about 400m away so maybe just on the very edge if this dongle really is good at picking up signals as it appears to be.

Yes a 2g only mast approx.1.5miles away.

But As I needed a backup to adsl (overhead cables) this device on a refresh contract was just what I needed. (it was on a good offer a week ago same package is now £6 more a month.

I intend to pay it off on the device plan so the wingle will have cost me £34 to buy and paying then £15 for 5gb a month is not bad.

But it suffers the usual o2 compression but this can be bypassed in the apn settings changing user name to bypass as per the guide on here http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/mobile-broadband...

Just tried it in my car and the o2 4g mast in Shaftesbury was picked up in the car park of my local super market in Stalbridge approx. 9 miles as the crow flies so this dongle has a good internal antenna with the option of connecting external antennas mimo via ts9 connectors.

Edited by deleted (Sun 29-Mar-15 11:22:58)