Hurrah – the holiday season is well and truly upon us!
And @richardmackney has been updating us on his Three MiFi experience whilst on a caravanning trip in North Devon (the cool kids are calling these staycations!).
#ThreeMiFi Staycation
Hurrah – the holiday season is well and truly upon us!
And @richardmackney has been updating us on his Three MiFi experience whilst on a caravanning trip in North Devon (the cool kids are calling these staycations!).
#ThreeMiFi Staycation
This week saw the launch of Three’s Mobile Broadband Bus. It started its journey at Wallingford library in Oxfordshire and will be travelling around the country this summer in its aim to “show, not tell” people how to get online.
At the launch were Martha Lane Fox, UK Digital Champion, Ed Vaizey, the Minister responsible for libraries and broadband and Three’s CEO Kevin Russell.
Part of Martha’s job as UK Digital Champion (don’t you wish you had the word Champion in your job title?!) is to help get more people connected to the internet. Today there are 10 million adults in the UK who have never been online and Race Online 2012, the campaign spearheaded by Martha, is aiming to change that.
Three is contributing to this effort by aiming to introduce 100,000 people to the internet for the first time and they’re going to use their Mobile Broadband Bus to help them do it!
Kevin talks below about Three’s involvement in Race Online 2012 and the Mobile Broadband bus.
Keep a beady eye on Three’s blog for more info about where the bus is going next and if it’s in your area, why not pop along and say hi!
Do you know anyone who has never been online? We’d be really interested to hear from you if you do. How do you think they’d benefit from getting online? Leave us a comment below!
What did you get up to this weekend?
@Karamina from tales from the village tells about her weekend, which included a trip to Longleat Safari Park with her family to test the In car Wi-Fi from Three.
So what did she make of using MiFi in the car with the kids? It seemed mostly to be used for information purposes – big green tick from teacher!
They used it to look up facts about places on the way there as well as animal facts on the way around the Safari Park. Pop over to her blog for her thoughts on the In car Wi-Fi.
@Erica from Littlemummy and @LindaSJones from You’ve got your hands full have also been testing out the In car Wi-Fi, so keep an eye out for their thoughts.
@mum_themadhouse has trialled the MiFi and asks the question on her blog as to whether it’s worth it when you have wireless broadband at home. She found it useful to connect her partner’s iPod Touch and her laptop when moving about London as well as on the train to and from the capital, but is it something she’d use everyday?
What do you think? Do you need the internet when out and about? And once you’ve got it, do you realise that you use it for more than you think? We’d love to hear your views.
Yet again this week we’ve had MiFis in the hands of avid internet users who don’t want to entertain the idea of being offline and they’ve all been using the MiFis for different things.
@adonisdemon has been using his to test Three’s network at the seaside, @liamgh was relying on it at a conference where he used it to follow up on links and store his notes in Dropbox, @richardmackney has taken it on holiday with him to use in his caravan at the beach and @marbelle has explained how he uses it to help him to run his blog Director’s Notes.
So how did MiFi help @Marbelle with his blog?
“I blogged on the bus, on the train and didn’t have to hunt down a Starbucks every time I came to a rest[…]It’s a forgone conclusion that I’ll be adding a MiFi to my on the go set up.”
Of using the MiFi at his conference Liam said:
“The MiFi 2 coped with this task without any issues. I switched on the device and left it in my pocket and connected up to it. The five hour battery life is enough to get you through a typical conference day”
Abul took the MiFi on his trip to The Isle of Sheppy, Maidstone and Southend and reported that:
“I can’t really say I noticed much of any dropped signal nor any poorer speeds around those areas. Even at the beaches and in town. This is down to Three’s recent upgrades across their network nationwide. It’s done a good job”
And Richard has been using his whilst caravanning to keep in touch with people by Skype and FaceTime when he couldn’t get signal on his iPhone and to watch the Grand Prix and upload videos to YouTube
What have you used the #ThreeMiFi for…?
The lovely Liz over at Violet Posy tried and tested the In car Wi-Fi with her family on a long car journey and has very kindly given us a guest post about her experiences and thoughts on it:
“Three MobileBuzz asked me if I’d like to try their mobile In car Wi-Fi and a day trip on them to Alton Towers – now who am I to say no? Especially as they even sent us some travel sweets.
I’ve worked in IT for years and the thought of the passengers being able to use a shared Wi-Fi hub was great. It keeps the little ones in the back entertained with their Nintendos or iPods and it meant I could check the travel news on the motorway while my husband drove.
The journey from here to Alton is about 3 hours and I have to say the Wi-Fi when we were in a 3G cell was amazingly good. We had the iPhones, iPod touch working, surfing the web and looking at App Store at the same time no problem and it was really fast. We didn’t use it as much on the way back as our daughter was exhausted and fell asleep all the way home – something that never happens!
So all in all I was very impressed with it. I can see other applications, say using it in the park or garden would be great if you want to work or blog outside and your home Wi-Fi doesn’t stretch as far as you’d like. Or if you commute or travel a lot, popping it into your bag and then working from your laptop would make it ideal piece of kit. I loved it’
Thanks Liz! Has anyone else got any tips about what to use the MiFi for? We’d love to hear them.
Did you know:
- 82 per cent of parents battle with children when travelling in the car because they are bored or restless when left without entertainment.
- 10 percent of British parents would rather have root canal therapy than endure car travel with the kids!
Can anyone relate to that??
Well @notSupermum and @vwallop tried out Three’s In car Wi-Fi this weekend with their families. So what did they think?
@notSupermum described it as a “must-have gadget”:
“MiFi is genius. We had the iPod Touch playing music from Spotify and The Teenager used it for checking emails and looking at the internet – all in the backseat of our car.”
They drove along B roads as well as the M6 and M56 and only encountered a bit of a problem with signal for a while on the M6.
@vwallop and her family had a great day out and appreciated the idea of the MiFi:
“I can see how the MiFi would be super useful if you had an iPad, or used your laptop when out and about on a regular basis.”
…but with car sickness and three arguing children to contend with, the MiFi had to take a bit of a back seat:
“…car journeys in our family are complicated enough without adding another factor into the mix.”
@vwallop was able to make more use of the MiFi later on though, when she took it to the park for a bit of quality blogging time.
Pop over to their blogs: notSupermum and It’s a small World After All for more opinion on the In car Wi-Fi as well as a great read! : )
Have you tried out the In car Wi-Fi? What did you think of it? We’d love to hear from you.
And to end: what a cute picture of @vwallop’s tribe of tired soldiers!
So, a few weeks ago @TobyHowarth was having a chat on Twitter about the Three MiFi, looking for advice as to whether to get one or not.
We saw him in distress and got in touch to give him some more info on the MiFi and link him to some reviews from our triallists. We also gave him a trial for a couple of weeks to test it out for himself.
Now, Toby doesn’t have a blog of his own yet, so we thought we’d let him post his thoughts on the MiFi in a guest post – below are his thoughts:
“First things first I love gadgets. I drool over most apple products and anything inventive, new and shiny usually gets my attention.
I am a big Twitter user and having seen others tweeting about the MiFi I started asking for opinions to judge whether I needed one and if it would be beneficial.
Due to the power of Twitter the kind folks at 3mobilebuzz contacted me asking if I fancied taking one on trial to see if it would be useful. The big day arrived and the MiFi was delivered. First impressions were good it is a fantastic looking device. It is small lightweight and is simple to use. I looked through all the paperwork and charged the MiFi up ready to use the next day.
What appealed to me the most about the MiFi is the ability to link multiple devices so I could hook my mac and iPhone up to it at the same time. Turning the device on took a few attempts (certain buttons need to be pressed in the right order) but once on my mac picked up the signal as did my phone.
Where I live the 3G is not great but the MiFi was quick and exceeded my expectations. However in my day to day life I did not find much use for the device as I have Wi-Fi at work and home.
I am though currently taking a course in London which involves 4 hours on a train so I took the MiFi with me to use. When the device had signal it was quick and problem free but being on a train meant passing in and out of signal which was a pain.
On the whole the MiFi is a great little device and trialling it made me realise I don’t need one just yet but who knows, if I get an iPad I might just change my mind.”
Thanks Toby, great to get your thoughts and we’re glad you enjoyed trying the MiFi. Let us know when you get the iPad (there’s no use resisting it, it seems we’re all going to have to give in sooner or later!)
As iPads are trickling into the country from the US before the launch here in the UK, more and more people have been talking about trying out the device, and 3’s MiFi has been mentioned often as a much needed accessory.
Fred from tekimage got his hands on an iPad of his friends’ this week and is sure that 3’s MiFi would be the “perfect companion”. He’s keen to test them out together and has convinced his friend to let him borrow it for a video test. Keep your eyes on his blog for that.
Ben from The Really Mobile Project also sees the benefit of the partnership and bought a MiFi to use with his iPad, describing it as a “great combo” and “great for mobile working”.
Have you tried the iPad with the 3MiFi yet? Let us know what you thought of it.
So after our post asking which you’d go for, WiFi enabled iPad wth MiFi or iPad 3G, @emkwan of the Emkwan Project has posted a video review of the 3UK MiFi on his blog asking the same question: “MiFi – Your iPad’s new friend?”
@kiphakes of gadgetmosster has been reviewing a 3UK MiFi from us and also posted his video review this week. He concludes by describing it as a ‘must have’, but is that a must have for iPad users also?
It’s Kip’s first ever video review so go over and tell him how good it is! : )
Let us know if you’re planning on getting a WiFi enabled iPad – we’re interested to see who’s going to try it out with MiFi.
Abul (@adonisdemon) of adonismobile and Stephen (@stephenwing) of UKGadgeteer, have both tried 3’s MiFi as well as Novatel’s Wireless Intelligent Mobile Hotspot.
Back in December, Stephen commented on the differences in price between the two, ease of set up and the networks that they use.
Abul has just started trialling the Novatel device and still thinks that 3’s MiFi is the slickest one on the market.
If you’re thinking of getting yourself a MiFi and have any questions, jump over and ask away
So Monday saw the #3UKBigGiveAway which generated a lot of interest on Twitter and elsewhere.
Today people were getting their emails from 3 telling them whether they had won or not and we have seen a lot of updates on Twitter, both happy and sad!
Members of MoneySavingExpert seem to have had a lot of luck, with one thread being choca with winners.
Congratulations to all the winners and our condolences to all the losers – keep a look out for anymore promotions from 3UK and let us know if you were one of the lucky ones!
Morning everyone! Wanted to let you all know that 3’s BigGiveAway is happening today, all day from 9am to 7pm.
Every hour 3 is giving away 100 dongles and 80 one month Spotify Premium subscriptions and it’s completely free to enter.
3 believes that the internet is for everyone and wants to give everyone the chance to use it. There have been other dongle giveaways, which had a good reception from customers at UKGadgeteer – but this one will be even bigger.
Good luck everyone – let us know if you manage to win anything!
Stephen at UK Gadgeteer has posted about 3’s network improvement works, which started today.
“Already hitting capacity in certain areas, it makes sense to me to start with London to roll out what should end up as a faster, better network, which is one of the two areas 3UK really still need to work on (the other being Customer Services, but that’s not unique to 3UK).”
You can access all the information about these works on 3’s dedicated page, as Stephen explains:
“…from that page, you can enter your postcode (or town name) and it will tell you about any planned outages in your area; for the area around my home, for example, it tells me they… have more planned for today, which might result in an outage for me”
Outages – a dreaded word for any mobile network. They’re a necessary evil, however, and:
“…if they improve my home 3UK network signal, that’s no bad thing as far as I’m concerned, and well worthy of a few hours of no signal.”
3 has asked us to share some important information with you, which will affect coverage in the London area in the short term, but will benefit the wider network of UK customers in the long term.
The improvement work is scheduled on 3’s London network, and is due to start on November the 2nd.
The work is part of 3’s ongoing drive to keep network standards as high as possible across the UK.
3 already have the UK’s biggest 3G network, and clearly this is a position that it wishes not only to maintain, but to improve upon still further.
The work is due to be completed by Christmas, and disruption to customers should be minimal. As the work is carried out, each site being worked on will be out of action for up to 8 hours. During that time:
To minimise any disruption, 3 has provided a service where you can sign up for free text alerts about engineering taking place in your area. Just go to www.three.co.uk/london and follow the on page instructions.
If you need any further advice then we’re happy to help. We’ll also be compiling questions for the 3 team, so let us know if there’s any additional info you’d like to know – just drop us a line in the comments or email phil@3mobilebuzz.com
Ian Miller has posted a review of 3’s Mobile WiFi device, complete with videos. As well as an unboxing Ian also shows us the simple connecting procedure and the capabilities of the connection for browsing, using chat software, and so on.
“The killer for me was being able to use Skype on the go. Those who use iPhones know that its Skype app has quashed the ability to make Skype Calls over 3G, it will only allow it on wifi. Well, now my iPhone had wifi, albeit mobile connection from inside my bag, but crucially, its still wifi. So I was able to walk around making Skype calls.”
He’s also thought of another useful application of the technology,
“I am considering reccomending [sic] the school I work at invests in one to allow groups to use offsite on trips, so that updates can be communicated back to base and students with wifi devices can get a few free minutes to catch up.”
Ian ends his review with a positive comparison against standard mobile broadband dongles. Whilst their software can sometimes be difficult to set up, “MIFI has no software, just a wifi, which makes it a product that’s instantly a thousand times more preferable.”
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