Wifi network options.

[BellatorGero]

I've found an office thats perfect for us. But is pretty expensive for the Internet. Is it possible to get a wifi network through a dongle? As we'll have at least three computers that need hooking up to it.

 

[thecyclingartist]

Depending on your usage, a dongle could work. I use a pay-as-you-go T-Mobile dongle. The dongle itself is about £30 I think (I paid more when they were a new thing). They do rates of £2/day, £7/wk, £15/30 days. I always get the 30 day rate and it's pretty equivalent to any contract version I could find. The dongle can be swapped into different computers, it's not linked to one in any way.

Sometimes the signal goes and I have to restart it, but generally it's fine. I use email, forums, Twitter, upload and email images, and average type activity all day. Have watched BBCi, and even (don't tell!) played World of Warcraft very occassionally and still been under the data limit. T-Mob is also the only company that doesn't charge you for going over the limit (other co's charge per data over the limit).

The only thing I don't do with it is transfer large files, which I do when I'm home on a faster connection. But by that I mean transferring about 1Gb of files and more.
__

Just realised you said network. oops! There IS one but I don't remember which company does it. A fellow artist and I looked into it for sharing a connection. Hopefully someone else will know!


Tina.

 

[paultnl]

Draytek do routers that use dongles.

 

[brownie]

Read the small print on all wireless broadband offerings closely, TMobile for example on PAYG charge £1 per day for internet access however this has a fair usage condition of 40MB per day. A 30 day internet pass on PAYG has a fair usage condition of 1GB per month. If on a contract, the unlimited web has a fair usage of 1GB per month.

IIRC Orange has 3GB per month on a contract, all the other providers have similar conditions.

As you can see, these wireless broadband offerings are not suitable for primary usage, they are for secondary backup or road warriors. Hence the Draytek routers having this option, loose your wired broadband connection it'll failover to the wireless dongle, however you would be looking to fail back ASAP before getting cut off for exceeding any data limits.

Have you checked to see if there are any wireless networks in range you can use? Take a notebook or smartphone into the location and scan around, you might be able to share another businesses connection and the costs between you?

Are you not going to have a landline for your phones installed?

 

[Logistika]

three.co.uk (3)have a 15Gb per month facility at £30 per month.

They were promoting it via dixons group, and threw in a free laptop if taken out under a 2 yr contract.

Additionally 3 have a wifi box around £60(one off charge) into which you put the contract sim card. It is effectively a dongle which doesn't plug into a computer, but allows wireless access, and providing your postcode is 3 enabled, it is a very reliable system.

I am speaking from personal experience as I "caravan" a lot.

 

[british steve]

You should not even be thinking about mobile broadband for office based business use. Mobile broadband is SLOW and unreliable at the best of times. Since you will be moving in this new office I am guessing that you will have to have phone lines installed? If thats the case then why not add broadband to that line, if your a distance away from the exchange I would recomend you sign up with BE or if you happen to be a 02 mobile customer then sign up with 02 for the £5.00 discount (BE and 02 are pretty much the same company - both owned by Telefonica) BE's top package is under £25 per month and works on ADSL2+ so is a lot faster than bog standard broadband even if you live further from the telephone exchange.

 

[firstassist.it]

I'm with British_Steve on this.
If you're in an office, you're better off with a connection into it.

Mobile Broadband is ideal if your moving about a lot, and need to use it, but as Steve said, its slow, and not to mention, if the network decides to do any maintenance work, you'll be without a connection till they get back online.

O2 have been unreliable over the past few months for their mobile broadband, which a lot of people were put off by, but as far as I know, its back up and running with no problems.
If you were an O2 Mobile Broadband customer, you'd be constantly effected by they're issues. - This is the only reason I state about it, and it would constitute as your downtime depending on your business.

Hope this helps.

 

[sanjiv]

I have used mobile broadband and have found it to be really unreliable at times. Maybe its the dongle they supply because I used a laptop with 3G built in and it was good. Not the quickest especially when over 3 computers.

Are you getting a phone line?

 

[Logistika]

I have used mobile broadband and have found it to be really unreliable at times. Maybe its the dongle they supply because I used a laptop with 3G built in and it was good. Not the quickest especially when over 3 computers.

Are you getting a phone line?

mobile broadband is purely dependent on your location. 5 miles away, my setup is atrocious, but I chose my provider based on their coverage.

I have seen landline broadband of 6meg broad to a standstill through sharing bittorrent, but if office use is general surfing and email, mobile is sufficient, and has the benefit of being transferrable for certain business models.

Its horses for courses. For some it suits, for others it doesnt, however in certain rural areas, mobile has more capacity than landlines. that has historically been my problem.

 

[Leomas]

With mention of your network, a lot of broadband routers will have four or more network ports which will allow you to connect the computers. Ready made network cables are cheap enough and would give you good bandwidth and shared internet but without the hassle of protecting a wireless network from 'drive-by freeloaders'.

 

[BellatorGero]

I want the office as clutter free as possible, I HATE wires. So I want a way to keep them out if possible.
I wasn't going to have a phone line fitted, we use VOIPFONE for our landlines. We are also out of the office 2-4 days a week. So having a landline routed to the mobile is just easier.

 

[sanjiv]

Could you not get cable broadband or how much would ADSL be for you in that area?

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

I want the office as clutter free as possible, I HATE wires. So I want a way to keep them out if possible.
I wasn't going to have a phone line fitted, we use VOIPFONE for our landlines. We are also out of the office 2-4 days a week. So having a landline routed to the mobile is just easier.

I don't think that VOIP on a mobile bb connection is particularly viable. Doesn't VOIP need a pretty decent BB connection.

I think that you need to look properly at proper business tariffs. If you're renting offices you're obviously planning on being there for a while and the BT business contracts will usually waive all connection/instalation fees when you sign up to a contract.

How essential is broadband/ability to make and answer calls to your business? If it's vital, why are you even considering a half cooked cut and shove solution.

If it's not vital, well that's obviously a different kettle of fish.

 

[sanjiv]

He is not saying VOIP on mobile bb. He gets calls redirected to his mobile.

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

OK. But how is that a "least cost" approach?
Wouldn't it be cheaper to pay for decent broadband and get them delivered that way?

 

[sanjiv]

He said he was out of the office so he wanted it to his mobile anyway.
It probably be better to get it delivered to a PC and when you go out of the office, just click and get it to go to mobile. That would be cheaper but it does really depend on call volume because you need to weigh up the cost between clicking divert everytime you go out and come back into the office and what you are paying to have it go to mobile all the time.

 

[Seb de Lemos]

If your dongle gets good signal in the office, you're only using it for basic emails, and you're not hitting any usage limits, I don't see a problem. I'd always go for a full adsl connection + phone line, but that's just preference.

To share it with other computers you can share your internet connection from one computer with others. I know it's really easy with Macs, and you can share the internet from USB to others via Airport or Cable - but not sure exactly how it works with PCs.

 

[Deleted member 61074]

I spend big blocks of time working in Europe where I have to rely on mobile broadband - it is fine for email and small amounts of browsing, using skype for phonecalls doesn't give a quality call though. I find
myself regulary using wificafe and friends for a decent connection when I need to upload or do something beefy

for a primary connection you will get very frustrated