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- Little Feckwittering-on-the-Moor
... at 3.15pm on Thursday they finally switched on the 3G signal on the T-mobile mast that covers my house, so both 3 & T-mobile are live because they have a network-sharing agreement for 3G, Orange might also be live (because they're merging with T-mobile and are either introducing roaming between the two legacy networks by the end of the summer or the end of the year depending on who you believe).
The operators* are allegedly rolling out further 3G coverage on a solely commercial basis (having met their licence conditions), but managed to do the next cell along the road - which covers (according to their map) 25 buildings, of which approximately 20 are barns, a crossroads of a local road and a relatively quiet rural A road - but not the one that covers the village in which I live where there are around 1000 residential properties.... still no matter they finally did it after 6 months of further waiting.
If anyone is running along on a 3G dongle and feels a bit "tied" to a single PC (or wants to use their xBox/Wii/PS3/DS/PSP/iPod touch/iPad/toaster etc on it) - I acquired one of 3's MiFi devices from Argos today... now according to Argos I had to buy a £10 top up too, but thanks to the unique way in which they select their staff, the manager overrode that for me so I walked out with it for £40 instead of £50 (and I already had a live SIM anyway, with some credit on because BT arsed up my non-BT DSL the other week and I went and sat in a layby near the previously noted crossroads that was 3G-enabled while they fixed it.)
Man it's a sweet little thing - about the size of a 10-pack of cigarettes - allows up to 5 devices to share the 3G connection - obviously not for 2 people intent on downloading like the clappers but for my purpose (business continuity plan for working from home - saving me a 130 mile round trip) perfect. If you're not on 3, but have a need for a device like it, allegedly it can be unlocked so you can lob in a SIM from the network of your choice... looks like it's being discontinued at Argos at the £39.95 price but can be had elsewhere for not much more, I was mostly cashing in a pile of Argos vouchers (that arrived here from somewhere) and nectar points...
* 3 & T-mobile have a network sharing agreement, Orange and Vodafone have a network sharing agreement, O2 is William Friendless. All other networks like Fresh, Tesco Mobile, Asda Mobile, Virgin are piggy-backed on to one of these 5 (well 4 since as mentioned T-mobile and Orange are now a single entity - Everything Everywhere or something like it).
The operators* are allegedly rolling out further 3G coverage on a solely commercial basis (having met their licence conditions), but managed to do the next cell along the road - which covers (according to their map) 25 buildings, of which approximately 20 are barns, a crossroads of a local road and a relatively quiet rural A road - but not the one that covers the village in which I live where there are around 1000 residential properties.... still no matter they finally did it after 6 months of further waiting.
If anyone is running along on a 3G dongle and feels a bit "tied" to a single PC (or wants to use their xBox/Wii/PS3/DS/PSP/iPod touch/iPad/toaster etc on it) - I acquired one of 3's MiFi devices from Argos today... now according to Argos I had to buy a £10 top up too, but thanks to the unique way in which they select their staff, the manager overrode that for me so I walked out with it for £40 instead of £50 (and I already had a live SIM anyway, with some credit on because BT arsed up my non-BT DSL the other week and I went and sat in a layby near the previously noted crossroads that was 3G-enabled while they fixed it.)
Man it's a sweet little thing - about the size of a 10-pack of cigarettes - allows up to 5 devices to share the 3G connection - obviously not for 2 people intent on downloading like the clappers but for my purpose (business continuity plan for working from home - saving me a 130 mile round trip) perfect. If you're not on 3, but have a need for a device like it, allegedly it can be unlocked so you can lob in a SIM from the network of your choice... looks like it's being discontinued at Argos at the £39.95 price but can be had elsewhere for not much more, I was mostly cashing in a pile of Argos vouchers (that arrived here from somewhere) and nectar points...
* 3 & T-mobile have a network sharing agreement, Orange and Vodafone have a network sharing agreement, O2 is William Friendless. All other networks like Fresh, Tesco Mobile, Asda Mobile, Virgin are piggy-backed on to one of these 5 (well 4 since as mentioned T-mobile and Orange are now a single entity - Everything Everywhere or something like it).