3G Card Reviews

Networks Under Review: BT Mobile Broadband, Vodafone Mobile Broadband and 3 Mobile Broadband

Vodafone Mobile Broadband

I tested the Vodafone mobile broadband over a 48hr period and with them advertising all over the place that they are the fastest mobile broadband provider with a maximum speed of 7.2Mbps I had high expectations.

My experience was unfortunately less than satisfactory.

Throughout the 48hr period I could not get a connection faster than .01Mbps so it was most definately not a fast internet connection, I would have been better off using and old fasioned dialup modem.

I did try emailing their technical support to see if there was anything wrong with the access points but I didnt get a reply until 7 days later when I had already returned the product to the shop I got it from and cancelled within the 14 day period.

They then had the cheek to charge me around £5 for trying to use it!

Score: 5/10 - Every time I tried to connect I could but the very poor connection speed let it down.

BT Mobile Broadband

At work we use various different mobile broadband solutions, one of which is BT Broadband.

I had to work from home over the last couple of days so I borrowed one to see how I got on with it.

Promising speeds up to 3.6Mbps I was pleasantly surprised to see that I got a 512Mbps connection speed. However this wasnt constant and kept dropping down to 53Kbps - slower than a dialup modems speed.

When it did disconnect me I had to constantly fiddle to get it to connect again, the software was telling me to check the SIM, remove the modem, plug it back in again, stand on my head, pull a funny face and then reboot.

Rebooting seemed to do the trick but I never had this problem with Vodafone, it may have been a poor connection speed but it was at least constant and stable.

Score: 4/10 - it may be faster (at times) than the Vodafone offering but the messing about to get it working when it kept on disconnecting itself lets it down tremendously.

3 Mobile Broadband

Vodafone may be the largest mobile phone company, but did you know that 3 have the largest mobile broadband coverage at 80%? 80% may not sound much, but Vodafone and BT Mobile Broadband dont have a mobile broadband coverage that high.

The 3 mobile broadband offering states speeds of up to 3.6Mbps but they then say only to expect up to a 1Mbps speed unless you are in a large City such as London. Now there's honesty we dont see from other providers!

The speed I get from 3's mobile broadband network is a constant 512Mbps. It didnt disconnect from me at all but just to test it, I disconnected it manually a few times and was able to reconnect withing a minute without any messing about!

I tried contacting 3's techincal support and they were about as much use as the Vodafone response as they also took around 7 days to reply. So much for email being quicker than Royal Mail!!!

Score: 8/10 - With a constant fast-ish speed that never let me down this has got to be the mobile broadband of choice. Only the long delay from emailing technical support lets this offering down.