I’ve got a couple of questions for you guys. Have you ever used mobile broadband on a laptop? What company was it with and how did you find it?

The way my career is evolving I’ve found I need to do a reasonable amount of travel and constantly be using tools like google earth on my laptop while on the road. Specifically I’m looking at getting one of those USB sticks which operate through I believe the 3G network. I’m deciding which company and which specific plan to go with. The choices are Telstra / Optus / Virgin / Vodafone / 3.

I guess I’ll need at least 2 or 3 gig per month, maybe up to 5. Speed is reasonably important, response time and lack of dropouts is very important to me.

What have your experiences with this type of on the go broadband? Which company was it through and what was the internet experience like in terms of speed and lack of dropouts?

Also if anyone has any specific recommendations on getting a great deal or has a connection with a shop where that might be possible please let me know.

If you ever go out of the metro are, your only option is Telstra Next G.
3's coverage is shit-house to say the least.
I'm on 3gb/month with Telstra. Very fast, and never drops out.

I'm with 3. It costs me $29 per month for 3gb.

Not too bad for me since I live in the CBD, but I have managed to take it as far south on the train as Rockingham. Any further south, reception is nil.

Hi,

I am in the sticks on NextG, paying $114/m for 3gig download.

Ouch.

Cheers,
Nik

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There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.

Nik go onto your telstra bigpond home thing (internet monitor) and change your plan 5gb for $89.95. Unmetered after 5gb just slows.

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97 WRX V3 STi with goodies.

I use telstra. $149 for the stick, they say the credit expires every 30 days but mine seems to have a year on it every refill.

I have tried vodafone and they are totally shit. I use them as my phone carrier but data coverage is a joke.

I have used my telstra card at OB18 newman, olympic dam, dysart qld, stirling dam harvey and always got 3g

I used my telstra one 400km north of broken hill in the middle of no where along the dingo proof fence. Was wicked no phone coverage but I had internet WTF !

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97 WRX V3 STi with goodies.

I had to get one set up for one of our illiterate site guys. Biggest hit up of all time so I went for the slowest one I could find. Optus. $30 / month for 2 gig. I tried it at home (canningvale) and it took over 10 minutes to load www.ninemsn.com.au .

If you are serious about needing one the only real option is telstra. Apparently they are launching a new modem about now that will take even more advantage of their next g network. You pay for the pleasure of Telstra but there is no doubt it is the best.

Brendon

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Hi,

Thanks for the heads up Phil. That's awesome news.

Will do today!

Cheers,
Nik

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There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.

I use a Telstra NextG one extensively. As others have said, if you are going anywhere outside of Metro areas, NextG is the company to be with. If you're going REALLY far out into the sticks, get a model with an external antenna. Just be wary of where you use it. Our company was one of the first to deploy mobile NextG routers to sites and it was blisteringly fast. Now every man and his dog has them, some isolated areas can get very congested. Just because your connected at 7.2mbps doesn't mean you will get 700k/s downloads. More often than not the tower will only have a 512K connection back to the city, and with 50 people all trying to use aircards its shitslow.

That said I've used mine pretty succesfully all over australia.

Theres a new USB model now that also comes with 1GB of flash memory so it can be used as a thumbdrive!

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