Transfer Sim from Dongle to Mifi

[pollensa]

To all the geeks out there - I know we have a few on board :

I've had an Orange contract for a 3g dongle - £15 a month rolling 30 day contract for 1Gb in UK plus daily rate if I use it in the EU - which I always have as a backup if I can't get Wifi (as in our hotel in Guildford this week). The dongle works well & speed is usually fine but it is restricted to my laptop so can't be shared.

I'm now thinking of getting some sort of tablet (possibly Nexus 10) & my husband has laptop too so am wondering about buying a Mifi (Mobile Wifi) & transferring the Sim, which I assume is possible? Has anyone done this? Does sharing with other devices and/or using it via Wifi instead of 3G direct affect speed etc?

I'm using this mainly in the UK & trips away from Mallorca but I think that the same would apply if any of you have bought dongles with a Spanish Sim?

Any views or experiences?

 

[clinkham]

To all the geeks out there - I know we have a few on board :

I've had an Orange contract for a 3g dongle - £15 a month rolling 30 day contract for 1Gb in UK plus daily rate if I use it in the EU - which I always have as a backup if I can't get Wifi (as in our hotel in Guildford this week). The dongle works well & speed is usually fine but it is restricted to my laptop so can't be shared.

I'm now thinking of getting some sort of tablet (possibly Nexus 10) & my husband has laptop too so am wondering about buying a Mifi (Mobile Wifi) & transferring the Sim, which I assume is possible? Has anyone done this? Does sharing with other devices and/or using it via Wifi instead of 3G direct affect speed etc?

I'm using this mainly in the UK & trips away from Mallorca but I think that the same would apply if any of you have bought dongles with a Spanish Sim?

Any views or experiences?

This is my set up:
Requirement, to use in PP and UK, to connect multiple bits of kit via wifi to the mobile phone system.

Purchased an 'unlocked' Huawei MiFi from Amazon - also available on eBay slightly cheaper, but perhaps not as much come back if the unit didn't work. This is identical to the unit sold (but tied to 3) by 3.

Unlocked Three White Huawei E5331 High Speed 3G/4G MiFi 21.1 Mbps HSPA+ MOBILE BROADBAND

Purchased a new normal sized sim card from 3 purely for data use. Currently £10 for 1 Gb for one month. No contract, just Pay as you go. So if I need to use it I top up with £10. You don't need to pay each month - only the month you want to use.

No problems in the UK - up to 5 phones/tablets/ laptops can share, though I don't know how they count them.

Once I got to PP and a suitable sim card has been purchased locally, no problems - once you have got the right card and price plan. I did have some problems getting set up, but that was more to do with my lack of Spanish rather than the kit. And possibly the MiFi thing wasn't fully understood by the staff (though they were very helpful).
I used a sim card from the phone shop next to cafe Rambo and a Hits sim card from the little internet cafe shop across the road.

When sourceing your Spanish sim card you should be looking for a data only payasyougo card.

Looking ahead to your purchase of a tablet, I don't know about about Nexus, but there is a £100 difference a full size iPad with wifi and 3G and one with just wifi. More than enough to cover a far more flexible Mifi unit.

I was in the Manchester Apple store the other day. The iPad mini looked good (though a tad more expensive than android tablets). A more manageable size than my current iPad1. At upgrade time I would serious consider it.

If you contract with Orange has some way to go ask them if the sim will work in a MiFi unit - I expect it will. Of course they will try to sell you a MiFi locked on Orange, which would not be suitable (or cheap) for PP.

I have used my MIfi wifi to run iPlayer on my Humax Freesat box via this neat bit of kit ZyXEL WRE2205 N300 Wireless Range Extender/Repeater

I'm not a geek, honest!

 

[Ronnie]

To all the geeks out there - I know we have a few on board :

I've had an Orange contract for a 3g dongle - £15 a month rolling 30 day contract for 1Gb in UK plus daily rate if I use it in the EU - which I always have as a backup if I can't get Wifi (as in our hotel in Guildford this week). The dongle works well & speed is usually fine but it is restricted to my laptop so can't be shared.

I'm now thinking of getting some sort of tablet (possibly Nexus 10) & my husband has laptop too so am wondering about buying a Mifi (Mobile Wifi) & transferring the Sim, which I assume is possible? Has anyone done this? Does sharing with other devices and/or using it via Wifi instead of 3G direct affect speed etc?

I'm using this mainly in the UK & trips away from Mallorca but I think that the same would apply if any of you have bought dongles with a Spanish Sim?

Any views or experiences?

Sorry Pollensa, I cannot help, but speaking for myself as I am no use with computers so all I know is when you get past 60, I find that my "DONGLE" does not function as well as it did in my 20's and 30's !!!!!!!!!

 

[roig cat]

I'm not a geek, honest

Then what are you talking about/

 

[whaleywanderer]

This sounds really interesting and looks like a good alternative to having to use a dongle to access the Internet. My main problem with using a dongle is the limitations ie. slower speed/restricted data, not suitable for using Skype etc. I would like to use Skype more often but find that it just runs away with all the data that you have paid for (1Gb data doesn't go far at all!), consequently works out really expensive. Vodafone used to offer pay as you go unlimited but now only offer data bundles.

I too would like to know if Mifii would be a better alternative for my needs.

 

[pollensa]

Hi Whaley,

I don't think that a Mifi would resolve your data issues. Basically a Mifi is similar to a dongle in that it contains a Sim & you pay for the data used either as package (e.g. £15 for 1Gb), contract (so many Mb or Gb per month) or per Mb. The advantage is that more than one device e.g. laptop, phone, tablet can share the data. The device 'thinks that it is using Wifi as you do with broadband at home etc. but it is using the data from the Sim. So it's like putting your dongle on the table & you & other devices picking up the data wirelessly - but it is the same data speed & cost.

For me the advantage is not having to plug it into my laptop & only the laptop having access to it. The data charges will be the same so it won't help your skype issues, I'm afraid.

 

[clinkham]

The MiFi thingy does not reduce the data you use. It connects to the internet via the mobile phone system in the same way as a 'dongle'. Where it scores is by making this connection available via a wifi signal, in the same way as your wifi router at home does.
So you can connect all your wifi enabled laptops/smartpnones etc to the one internet connection.
I know you have to stop and think whether you really need all this stuff when you are on holiday (probably not!) but our family holiday last year accrued a laptop, an iPad, 3 smartphones and 2 old Nokia 6310i's with 2 Hits Spanish sim cards for phoning home and local calls in PP.You know, the sort of calls like- 'Hurry up, your beer is warming on the Illa d'or terrace.
Ah! just 154 days to go!!

Oops, ditto Zeldas post - obviously typing away at the same time - luckily, our advice seems to be the same!

 

[its cd]

Looks like I will be going down the mifi route as cant get IB RED to answer my emails

Can anyone help me find the data sim deal I am looking for

I want a Spanish data sim that gives unlimited data on 1 month rolling contract

Similar to the one I have at home from three that gives me unlimited data for £12.50 per month ....... Recognise that it is likely to be more expensive in Spain but at the moment can't even seem to find an unlimited data sim deal ...... Anyone got one?

 

[Belladonna]

Did you look at connect balear as barefoot suggested? I think its good if you want it as a permanent connection, but not for something that you can "disconnect" in some way when not needed. We are still using the dongle, but it does seem to be getting slower now.

 

[its cd]

just bought a mobile wifi device ( like a MIFI ) and a data Sim from Dataroam

looks too good to be true, £75 for the device and then - 3.5 euros per week for 100mb per day data - I do realise this won't let me stream video content or upload big files but its fine for my requirements. You can also have up to 60 days without topping up and the SIM remains active.

Of course it is an unlocked device so if this gift horse of a data sim turns out to be a donkey I can always take myself down to the vodafone shop

I will report back after our visit over easter

 

[pollensa]

just bought a mobile wifi device ( like a MIFI ) and a data Sim from Dataroam

looks too good to be true, £75 for the device and then - 3.5 euros per week for 100mb per day data - I do realise this won't let me stream content or upload big files but its find for my requirements. You can also have up to 60 days without topping up and the SIM remains active.

Of course it is an unlocked device so if this gift horse of a data sim turns out to be a donkey I can always take myself down to the vodafone shop

I will report back after our visit over easter

Sounds like a good deal. Is the Sim just for Spain? I've just seen that dataroam is part of 044.co.uk who offer various Sims for Spain & other countries.

 

[pollensa]

Hi CD,

I just looked on their site - which Sim did you buy? The best I could see was for £0.25 per Mb. Your deal looked much better.

 

[its cd]

It does appear confusing and to be honest I am not 100% sure my plan will work but here is my logic

I purchased the mifi and the sim after reading this article

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/mobile-phone/3364292/how-get-affordable-internet-access-abroad/



To be honest the dataroam website is far from clear - areas definitely refer to the Spanish sim ( orange network) offering 100mb per day for 3.5euros per week as does the pc advisor article ....... But it just seems too cheap , hence my gift horse statement

All the literature on the site is about thir international or eu card but I have definitely purchased the Spanish card

I wanted a mifi anyway so see the £15 I have spent on the Spanish sim as a bit of an experiment ..... I was getting fed up reading article after article about best value deals and though my time would be better used by just buying the darn thing and trying it out

 

[its cd]

Ok he is the verdict ...... It's ok and good value so long as you understand it's limitations

Firstly the sim I bought was an orange delfin tariff

I paid 10euros for the sim which gave me 4 or 5 euros of data

Data roam activated the sim for me a few weeks before we left after I had sent them my passport details - compulsory in Spain

The way this package works is that a 3.5euro plus tax charge gets taken each week providing the are sufficient funds on the Payg sim ....... And if the Sim isn't topped up for 60 days it becomes useless.

So by the time I arrived the sim was out of data credit and not working - I of course didn't immediately realise this but an email exchange courtesy of the Formentor spar's wifi with dataroam suggested this could be the problem. So I topped up the sim with 10 euros at the Voramar supermarket - very easy even with my limited spanish I just took the credit card size card that the sim came on with me to the shop and the lady topped up the card for me.

Second hiccup was that the APN provided in the documentation didn't work and I needed to change it to Orangeworld - again discovered after another email exchange with dataroam who gave me great service and prompt replies - chap called Carl was so helpful.

So I then had it working and it was great BUT it is only really suitable for a smartphone - I used an iPhone . You get 100 mb per day but only the first 100mb each week is at a reasonable speed 7 or 8 Mbps if I remember correctly once this is used up your speed drops to 128kbps which is very slow

So in the first week when I didn't realise this and I was using my ipad and accessing Facebook, opening pics etc i used up the 100mb in 2 days after which my ipad was virtually unusable. However at the lower speed I could still pick up mail on my iPhone, use twitter so long as I didn't open a picture and access the forum albeit slowly

So in week 2 I was more sensible, just used it with my phone and just stuck to email, twitter, wattsapp and pollensa forum and didn't use up 100mb

The mifi is so small it takes up no room in a bag so can be carried around with you

It does however have a poor battery life and frustratingly my sim has a sim lock that I can't work out how to remove so that every time the mifi runs out of power I have to renter my sim lock number. This is done via a website which can be accessed even when the sim is locked or out of credit by entering the provided ip address into your browser.

So not a real alternative to wifi but useful as a stop gap and cheap

10 euros got me 2 weeks , I won't top up the card again until I come back and then at the end of the summer I will just let the card die as it will be cheaper to buy a new one next year than keep topping up every couple of months

The mifi is useful in UK as well as it is unlocked and will take any SIM card

Also the sim allows you to send 50 free texts per week via a web interface using your smartphone ....... So that was also useful