[ubuntu-uk] laptops and broadband dongles

[Graham Smith]

Jon

> I’m looking for some information. My father in law is looking to buy a
> laptop and broadband dongle. We’ve (sort of) found a laptop that we’re going
> to put Jaunty onto but I’d like to know if there are any ISP’s we should
> look at and also any we should avoid?


I found that the 3-mobile  dongle works fine on my Asus eeepc 901 with
mint gloria (aka Jaunty) on it.  3-mobile  give 1gb a month at £10.
(or if you are an existing customer, its £5 a month)

 Mint automatically  found the dongle and identified the network.

However, if you look at the coverage maps, and I hadn't realised this,
you will see the coverage for mobile broadband is very different to
the mobile phone coverage. I had stupidly assumed that of I could get
a mobile phone signal I would get a broadband signal.

For example I pick up no broadband signal in my office or house(6 and
20 miles south of Bath), which now that I have checked is indicated on
the map as not being covered.  Indeed now looking at the map, there
are massive gaps in coverage, and its not just 3-mobile who have these
gaps, so I would check this, as there are lots of unexpected gaps.  On
the outskirts of Newport in South Wales, I picked up a signal fine
with the 3 dongle, but an 02 dongle couldn't find any signal.

In practice, in the 18 months of owning the dongle, I have only picked
up a signal three or four times. This has been across SW England,
South Wales, Central Scotland and North West Scotland.  In most of
these cases I could pick up a good mobile phone signal, but nothing at
all on broadband.

Graham