Mifi recommendation any one?

Watched this thread with interest and as a result just purchased a Huawei mobile E5330 modem and a 4g 12 month pre loaded sim card from Amazon

Thank you for helping me make a decision on choice.

Leighton.

We have a Huawei MIFI modem, 3G, 12GB, £30 for 12 months and use it at home too. We now only have a BT phoneline [no broadband]at home and can also connect to a BT wifi Hotspot in the house too which is fine for Streaming on the PC and ipad [the TV won't stream very well] That is a monthly saving of a few quid. However last weekend when one of the children came round her Facebook post said she was in South Wales [we had not been there] which set off a lengthy 'discussion' with her partner who working away and Mr L had to speak to him to prove she was where she said she was!

Reviving an old thread.....

I fitted one of the 3 12GB sims to my Netgear aircard unit in the UK some time ago. Since then I have used it in Luxembourg, Germany, Hungary & Austria. This morning it expired so I fitted my other one, while in Austria and have imediately got Internet. 

I am not sure how the "roaming" works, maybe I am using data allowance more quickly but I am able to check the internet which is fortunate as I don't have the address of our next stop write down.

"3" have recently added a huge number of 'roaming' destinations to their 'feel at home' package, all at no extra cost over your UK allowance.

Scroll down the linked page to see the list.

http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Phones/Feel_At_Home

Santa brought me a new unlocked Mifi unit and I'm going to get the 3 12gb sim (which still seems widely available).
Question is, is it likely to be more economical to get more than one or can the sim be topped up?

I have bought a couple as I don't want to mess around topping up

HOWEVER

check this out
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01M3VJ2B2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That's a very good deal, thanks for passing that on. I was heading into town tomorrow and planned to nip into 3 to get one, I'll send off for one of those instead 

I was going to mention it when I saw it just before Christmas but it had an "offer ends today" banner. I looked again today and it is still available so I could have mentioned it before.

I've just ordered one, can't wait for all the fun of trying to get the thing working 

I've used several of them and never had any problem getting a new SIM to work - essentially they just start working the first time you connect through and to the outside world.

When the year's (or 2 year's) allowance ends you can top them up, but I've never found it easy to do, and of course you are back to their standard tariff (£10/month or GB last time I topped up) so it's relatively expensive compared to just getting another SIM.

dbroada wrote:I was going to mention it when I saw it just before Christmas but it had an "offer ends today" banner. I looked again today and it is still available so I could have mentioned it before.

 Mission accomplished, card arrived two days after ordering. Thanks again for the heads up

I'll probably follow your, and Mojos, advice and just get another sim rather than topping up.

Just tried top up my ee mifi, first by swipe top up card (not recognised) then by mifi with tablet.
Again no go. 
To cut to the chase with ee mifi one has to activate/top up every 90 days at least otherwise the sim is locked and to reactivate it you have to call an ee number(08454 123662) that is most expensive, mins wise, AND it comes out of you credit balance not your allocated mins allowance.
They did give me 200 mins for 14 days as compensation but the call wiped £5+ from my credit balance. 
Seems for mifi top up you have to call a number that is on the ee web site for mobile top ups (which can be done ok there!)
frederic

Back end of last year I was going to top up my ancient 3G MiFi and 3 suggested I get a new card (payg) as now you take out the card £10 top up for 30 days and it leaves 200mb on it.  I topped up for the Southport Rally at the end of last year and it still has the free! 200mb on it
Are you going to Pontefract or Harrogate Rick ?

When we went abroad I took 3 Three sims to avoid topping up, which is very expensive. 

Nora

That's a thought as they are preloaded and only start when you activate them.
beats all the palava and phonecall costs I've just had!!
Good if you can get them on a special offer
frederic

If you go abroad, don't forget to activate them before you leave the UK. Also you can only use Three for two months abroad but apparently the two months re-sets when you cross a border.

Nora

Traficlady wrote:If you go abroad, don't forget to activate them before you leave the UK. Also you can only use Three for two months abroad but apparently the two months re-sets when you cross a border.

Nora

I can't comment on the two month limit but my 3 SIM worked fine last year in Czech without being activated before leaving the UK.

I activated al mine before we left the UK because I was told to in the Three shop

Traficlady wrote:I activated al mine before we left the UK because I was told to in the Three shop

As mine are time limited I didn't want to do this until necessary.

I think they're all time limited, usually 12 or 24 months. Ok if you're still I the UK but if you go outside the UK they would need activating first.

Nora

Askit wrote:

dbroada wrote:I was going to mention it when I saw it just before Christmas but it had an "offer ends today" banner. I looked again today and it is still available so I could have mentioned it before.

 Mission accomplished, card arrived two days after ordering. Thanks again for the heads up

I'll probably follow your, and Mojos, advice and just get another sim rather than topping up.

I got to try our new MIfi out last weekend, it's a TP Link and it was pretty easy to set it up and get it working. Although it was easy to get our Samsung and Apple gadgets to pick up the wifi from it, neither of our phones (a Samsung and LG) would pick it up. Very odd as my phone usually catches the wifi in just about every shop going. Guess I need to do a bit of research  

I'm not a phone expert but I know mine will find the MIFI readily. Does yours have a maximum number of active devices and had you left the other things attached?

Another possibility is that the MiFi is transmitting on the 5GHz band and the phones aren't able to use that band.

Or, the MiFi may be using a non-UK channel that the phones can't see.

Try installing WiFi Analyzer on the Android phone and see whether you can see the MiFi's SSID.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en_GB

Thanks for the replies. Dave, the unit will support multiple devices but they were all turned off when I tried to get the phones to link.

I'll have a go with the analyser though, I tried imputing the SSID code manually several times but neither phone would pick up. As I said, tablets, netbook, itouch picked it up right away.

meanchris wrote:Another possibility is that the MiFi is transmitting on the 5GHz band and the phones aren't able to use that band.

Or, the MiFi may be using a non-UK channel that the phones can't see.

Try installing WiFi Analyzer on the Android phone and see whether you can see the MiFi's SSID.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en_GB

Spot on with the problem and solution    The mifi was set on 5GHz, when I changed it to the 2.4GHz setting it picked up the phones right away.

Many thanks.