Bongo Fury

Hi, can anyone tell me the best provider for 3g coverage for Scotland, particularly out in the sticks? 3network get promoted for having the best rates - anyone use it?

feeblecat wrote:Hi, can anyone tell me the best provider for 3g coverage for Scotland, particularly out in the sticks? 3network get promoted for having the best rates - anyone use it?

Hi is this any help..

http://www.3gcoverage.co.uk/

Cheers.

Your unlikely to get 3G coverage in the "sticks" most phones/data links will drop to EDGE (2.5G) then down to GPRS (2G), also you will find that your sharing the bandwidth from the local cellphone mast back to the nearest switching centre which means that despite having a good phone/radio signal strength you will still have a slowish link if other people in range of the same mast are using data. But things are slowly improving as 3G spreads out from the population centres and more use of data is made, but it can still be very frustrating at times

Bummer! I was looking forward to being able to check out weather, places etc when moving about from site to site!

If you choose the BBC weather mobile site then provided you can get a signal that won't be a problem http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/mobile and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile don't try to use the normal web pages as they will waste the bandwidth with images and extra un-needed code.

Thanlks, how do you download without images-is it a weather app?

No bad choice of words, only small images and minimal formatting, adverts and other stuff, try it you'll see what I mean.

I use o2 and tmobile all over scotland. You'll get 3G coverage all the way up the M73 and A9 from the border to Inverness and will get 2.5G/2G on the A8x roads on the west coast. I've even worked from the spittal of glenshee carpark (wasn't skiing on a work day, honest).

bongo related: I have a 3G <--> wifi router installed in the bongo. It has a 50cm solwise antenna on the roof connected to a mini router that works on batteries and charges through the leisure battery via a cigarette lighter. It uses a TMobile USB data stick - the antenna improves the signal strength a lot. I often use it at bike races which are never nearby civilisation.

note: that vodaphone and o2 are on a different frequency to tmobile and 3. Voda/O2 is much better at bending round mountains and penetrating buildings. Tmob and 3 are much better line of sight to the transmitter. Remember that in Scotland it is much easier to stick a transmitter on top of something high up so the chances are your iPad will be fine.

Very infomative-thanks. I'm going to start with 3network for a couple of months cos its cheapest and see how it pans out. I can always change to another if it doesn't suit.

I tend to find licking my finger, holding it up in the air (moving it round slowly) untill it feels noticably colder, then looking in that direction is a fairly good way to work out the forecast. This method is not so reliable when you are either inside or under water.

I have a iPad 2, just wifi. I rented a campervan last year and toured the Western isles in October. Bought myself one these http://threestore.three.co.uk/DealSumma ... 43&id=1183

Found it to be brilliant when we had a signal. Up to 5 wifi gadgets can tap in to the wifi at once

3 had the best signal on the western isles when we were there........

BTW. I didn't sign up on contract. I bought the modem and went pay as u go

Update- I'm finding the 3 network works in most places. Only been to one place where I didn't get a signal.

Actually, I've also got a 3 USB "pay as you go stick" and it is working well in the northern central belt. When it doesn't have coverage I just stick the tmobile stick in.

I gave up on 3g in SW Scotland - very disappointed as I had hoped to access BBC Iplayer .I think that 4g is due next year and coverage is supposed to be better

iplayer, 4od, sky go etc use enormous bandwidth and you can easily use up a months allowance on a pay as you go stick in about 40 minutes of HD viewing. 3G really isn't high enough bandwidth for watching online broadcasts - especially out in the sticks.