[clug] Virgin Mobile Broadband with Linux Huawei E220

[Hal Ashburner]

Grant Morphett wrote:
> As I said I'm with 3.  I have a mobile plan with them and the mobile
> supports HSDPA so I have signed up to an XSeries plan.  500MB for
> $20/month.  It means I get internet both through my phone (good for email)
> and my laptop when I connect my mobile to my laptop.  I only browse the web
> and do emails during work hours so 500MB/month is just enough.  I have ADSL2
> at home for everything else.
>
> 3 also do a 1Gig $20/month plan too with an external USB modem and you can
> scale up from there in terms of gigage.
> If you can get good 3 reception the service is ok.  I find that the coverage
> isn't stunning especially inside buildings.  I haven't used other providers
> so its hard to compare however for the premium you pay for Telstra I would
> hope both their coverage and service would be significantly improved.  If
> not I would just go with 3 as its cheaper.  Remember with 3 there is no
> regional coverage.
>   
3 set you a trap, their network is small and if you automagically roam
away from them (to telstra?) the price increases to something insane
that will hurt you very deeply. This can happen in an area that three
claim to cover. I consider that this a dishonest business practice. The
pricing differential does not reflect their cost differential in any
way. It is done to extract large amounts of money from the unwary. I
will have nothing whatever to do with 3 or any company that sets such
traps for those who don't have the time or the cynicism to go looking
for them. And yes I know about half of all ISPs do it. :-(
Avoid 3 until they start behaving, say I.
> I believe Vodafone are offering 5Gb for $39/month at the moment.  No idea
> what that's like.
>   
Virgin do the same price, slightly lower early cancellation fee and the
network is optus. Virgin is now fully owned by optus and is simply their
"budget brand" With the configuration listed earlier in this thread I
seem to get 600 kb/s down. (Works well as my home ISP by plugging it
into an ASUS WL500gP router, which you may be aware ships with linux
installed on a broadcom mips cpu, and is fully hackable and upgradeable
for around $100. http://koppel.cz/cdmawifi/download/167/ is where you'll
find the relevant firmware. Easy web interface to upgrade the firmware,
good community, in short a lovely, lovely thing.)

Price on these mobile data services seems to be dropping so you should
note that the plan you get today will probably seem expensive in 6
months time, but you'll be locked into it for 24 months.

Likewise. And as a clug n00b I'm not sure how welcome such discussion is
on this list, if I've guessed wrong I apologise (and a heads up would be
appreciated :-) )