We've covered mobile broadband before on Automated Home.  Its ideal for people with no cable or ADSL access or those on the move. 

"If you want wireless broadband that you can share but you don't want the cost or hassle of a landline, you need a wireless router and a Huawei Mobile Broadband USB Dongle from 3.

Just plug your 3 Mobile Broadband dongle* into the router and you've got access to the internet that you can share with wi-fi enabled devices such as a PC, Mac or laptop. You can even connect more than one computer at a time, using just one dongle."

Click here for more info

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written by CJ UK , January 23, 2009

Looks just the job (assuming OK with our Mac's) ... would enable us to free-up a laptop, too (free-up in the sense that 3G reception inside the house is good in only some places, and whoever is hosting the USB stick has to fit with that) ...

now all we need is a way of putting the stick outside the window & this device inside (ie: our windows are metalised, and signal strength & so download speed suffers due to consequent S/N issues) ... wonder if a short USB cable would be OK to achieve that ??

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written by CJ UK , January 23, 2009

Geoff H over on UK_Selfbuild suggested this as an alternative :

http://www.solwise.co.uk/3g-routers.htm

which looks good - like the three modes (router, AP, client), too ... downside seems to be it's 802.11g, so it would slow some (802.11n) networks down rather a lot ...

not sure what standard of Wi-Fi the Huawei D100 (above) provides - or what modes it might have - need to see the spec', but not been able to find that, yet !

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written by TimH , January 23, 2009

CJ,

The user manual is at the bottom of the Solwise page - all 225 pages & 10MB of it!

It looks pretty good, and avoids the god-awful wall-wart power supply

Cheers,

TimH

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written by CJ UK , January 23, 2009

Thanks Tim - I found that (& stopped the download) ... it was the one for the Huawei D100 I hadn't found !

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written by CJ UK , January 23, 2009

OK, at :

http://www.huawei.com/mobileweb/en/products/view.do?id=1180&pageId=null

it says the D100 will do Wi-Fi at up to 54Mbps, so it must be 802.11g

the user guide shows it can connect to one PC via Ethernet, too (in addition, it says, to multiple connections via Wi-Fi)

still no info' on modes etc, though ...

so, on the face of it, the Solwise looks more comprehensive & versatile

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written by Alan in Belfast , March 16, 2009

Back in mid-January, they hadn't had the wee routers in stock since before Christmas. In the end, the 3G coverage was very unstable at our house, and I returned the 3G stick.

No reply from their media team when I asked about availability.

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written by shane , February 12, 2010

can it be used with tmobile mobile broadband

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