For work I have an O2 3G data card. Whilst this normally works fine, it can also be quite expensive - charged per MB of data transfer. O2 don't do an "unlimited" tarrif (or rather one, with a high acceptable usage limit) - they still seem to think that 400MB of transfer could be all you would need in a month.
T-Mobile recently announced their Web-n-Walk service which is their data offering. Its available to add onto a monthly account or on it's own for £30 per month - unlimited (well, 3GB on the Plus service or 10GB on the max service which is £44 per month). However, I don't want to be come a T-Mobile customer with a monthly fee. They also have a Pay as you Go (PAYG) offering where Web-n-Walk data is enabled by default. The key thing is there is a maximum charge of £1 per day. T's & C's say you should only use it in a phone (not in a laptop etc) and the limit is 40MB per day - measured monthly. Thats still 1.2GB per month. Not too bad .... Also, PAYG requirements are to make a call or use a service every 180 days to keep the SIM active.
So, I sent off for a SIM card (all of 50p) via the web, added £5 of credit and put the SIM in my o2 data card. Created a new profile to use the APN name "general.t-mobile.co.uk" - no Authentication, and it connected first time. I only had 1 bar of coverage on 3G at home however the download speeds were very impressive! I shall continue to try it out over the next few weeks instead of my o2 card - perhaps it may end up worth taking out a monthly contract if it continues to perform well.
Steve Seymour July 7th, 2007 20:01:19