Since I posted this post on my problems with my wireless broadband, I’ve received constant emails from around the Tropposphere on how I am going with the problem, begging for a sequel. Well folks, I can report the next exciting episode is that I contacted Optus at the end of my 30 day guarantee and told them that what they’d served up was a crock of shite and that I wanted to cancel the contract. I’ve just signed up with Three, and I get 1 Gig a month for $15 plus $5 per month for the modem – which is cuter and littler than the previous ‘dongle’ (their word). I can also upgrade it temporarily to the 2 Gig service for double the price – which I’ll need to do during christmas when I use it solidly over the six week Christmas break.
They said it wouldn’t work on Mum’s farm out past Hall, but because she’s about to move to a retirement village in town, I went with them and prepared to use a dialup for the next week or so. This halves the cost of access, so it’s a Good Thing. Three were also pretty good to deal with – less waiting and so on. (Though they refused to send me a connection if I couldn’t nominate a home base that had Three access. I told them that this was used for travelling – hello, is anyone home – but rules are rules and they told me that I would have had to go into a store to get the service if I had been in a base that didn’t have coverage. Anyway I did.
Anyway, I tested it on Mum’s farm, and it works just fine and dandy – I’ve just clocked it at 2177 kbps download and 350 kbps upload. (I suspect the problem with Optus was a technical one – as reception was good. On one occasion a technician told me some settings needed changing, but I wasn’t in the trouble zone when I rang and, though I repeated this lead to a couple of techies I talked to at Optus, nothing came of it. Anyway I’m saving money and getting better service now, so there you go, a bit of bad technical advice is sometimes a boon).
One thing I’ll have to watch is that outside the metropolitan area if it can’t rustle up the Three network it can go onto roaming and you get charged a bomb for that. Anyway, I don’t seem to have that problem where I am, and like most people I just want metro coverage outside this, so I’m a happy camper.
So I recommend it. In fact, if you want to email me on nicholas AT gruen DOT com and then DOT au, I’ll send your details to Three which means you and I will each get $25 for our trouble if you sign up.
Curse the Troppo server being down. I went and signed up for a new 3 mobile broadband service about half an hour before reading this.
I’ve kept my BigPond WBB service for when I or my family go travelling. I’d still rate it as the overall supretior quality service. But when my parents get back from being ‘grey nomads’ I’ll be dropping the BigPond plan back to the cheapest option on the rate card.
Re: the roaming thing with 3. If you have the new slimmer USB modem (which they market as the ‘internet key’) I think the default configuraiton is for it not to roam onto 2G, so if you want it to roam you have to go into the configuration manager and change from ‘3G only’ to ‘3G preferred’. I guess they wised up and got sick of dealing with all the customer complaints about massive roaming charges even when in the city.
I am glad 3 worked out for you Nicholas. I am jealous that you cracked 2Mbps first up!