Internet away from home

I stopped using Mifi when I realised that my Moto G phone has reception that's every bit as good as the Hauwei Mifi device. All I use now is a dual-SIM phone, a PAYG SIM from Three for phone and emergency internet data access, and an EE monthly contract SIM (actually from Plusnet) for internet access.

With an Android phone it's very easy to set it up as a wifi hotspot, so that any laptops/tablets in the area can connect through it to access the Internet, without needing any wired connections.

I find 4G adequate, but a lot depends on what you want to do. I suspect if you had several users watching video at the same time it would not be enough, but I don't tend to watch a lot of high def video, so that's not important to me.

The only fly in the ointment for me is that my Linux-based laptop wouldn't let me use its wifi interface, so for a year I had to use a long USB cable! Fortunately they fixed the Linux Kernel a short while ago and it all works Ok again.

[I should add that the above is for "away from home" use - I still have "fibre to the cabinet" and landline phone - almost never used - at home.]

Its certainly a conundrum, I could pay much less for our connectivity but keep coming to the conclusion that I just want to be able to do what I want with it whether at home or away without any constraints.

We don't use the landline at home for outgoing calls and very few people have it to use to call us but I still have a telephone instrument hardwired to BT that will work during a sustained power outage.  The unlimited data on fibre has been a boon over the last months as virtually everything we watched has been streamed, often two HD devices at once.

However if you don't use much data and think that I haven't used the hard wired phone for 15 years then (whether mifi or phone date) just connect the home devices to the kit you use in the van when your at home.  There are of course still large tracts of the UK with no or limited mobile coverage but the majority of that does not have a permanent population.  You don't have to be right off the beaten track to experience that as all networks have black spots.  I lived in a Vodafone blackspot till 18 months ago when they installed a new base station and I live in a town.

I expected to use the mobile wifi in the van much more that I actually did this year so am on a contract and have lost a lot, on the other side, when we could get away I've not had to worry about running out of data at an inconvenient time.  All my Vodafone sims will be out of contract mid January so I will be having a think then but expect to just carry on.  We've saved a fortune on eating out this year so are not out of pocket in the scheme of things.

In case anyone hasn't noticed, Three has announced a massive price hike on their PAYG phone contracts, so if you  have a second SIM from Three as a backup to your main data SIM (I do that in case I'm somewhere with no EE coverage for more than a day or so) the costs will go up a lot. And in this case "massive" is not an exaggeration! Their 3p, 2p and 1p tariff goes up to 10p, 10p and 5p, and some of the increase outside the UK are truly colossal - e.g. an SMS text outside Europe will go from 2p to 35p!

I don't think any of the increases apply to their "Internet with legs" or whatever it's now called, or at least, not yet...

It's hard to know, but it may be that they have simply decided to drop PAYG as a major part of their product line. I think it's a well-established fact that contract-based services are much more profitable for the mobile operators, not least because people have a tendency to buy contracts that are way bigger than they are ever likely to use!

I think my average monthly spend with Three is less than £1 so I doubt I'm contributing much to their profits - and I'll be transferring my number out as soon as the price increase hits!

I've been refreshing my Vodafone contracts today.

I had a mobile broadband for the van at £21 per month for 30 Gb. Absolute max we've used when streaming is 28GB and usually less but of course last year I've mostly been paying for nothing.

I'm now on a rolling 30 day contract. In any month I get 250MB free so ok for a little surfing when the mobile cant get a signal but the van roof mounted aerial can, then if we want to stream its £1 per Gb.

I'm sure there are cheaper PAYG deals to be had but this contract really suits my needs/desires.