please, please, please could someone explain dongles to me, rather urgently? i think i need to buy one, like, today...

[Aitch]

but the thing is i don't want to get a contract or spend too much money as i think i'll only need it for a short while.

well I thought it was a name for male genitalia so can't help you there, sorry!

bless you for trying...

I daren't google it now just in case

Some kind of phone attachment though I guess

(will shut up now)

We got a three one for 35.00 (this included a months top up) it was mainly for when we switched internet suppliers and now ds uses it on the spare laptop.

All we did was buy it shove it in the port and it installed itself ...very easy TBH.

You can get "pay as you go" ones, so you would only need to get it with some credit on it, then never bother to top it up. I think you can also often pick up second-hand ones on eBay, but that would not be as quick as walking into a shop and picking one up today.

so do you pay per month as well as pay for the actual dongle, or is it something you can kinda switch on or off when you need it?

You can buy a dongle which is set to work for 1 month (or another period of time). It doesn't come with a contract, you can just use it up and throw it out (or stick in a drawer for another emergency. You would just pay to have it "reset" when you wanted to use it again).

eg shop.o2.co.uk/promo/o2mobilebroadband/tab/Pay_and_Go - all the networks have their own versions.

great, yes, thanks, so am i right in thinking that the networks price these rather unnattractively in order to get you to take out a contract which gives you a 'free' modem?

and do you think we can buy these things from the carphone warehouse etc round the corner?

You can buy one from most Mobile shops.

I have one. I just topped it up and plugged it in.

lol, check you...

cheers, will go round there shortly. (once i've checked martin's moneysavers obv. )

oh, and what does it mean for emails? can one use the normal outlooky stuff or do we have to use online mail?

Oh yes they'd far rather tie you in to a contract than have your money just the once. We got a "free" netbook by taking a contract dongle, which gives you a clue about how much they must make out of them!

The carphone warehouse website have some listed, so you should be able to just walk in and get one straight away.

You can do whatever you normally do with your internet connection - it just means that instead of your PC/laptop using your home phone line, it has this little mini-mobile phone line to use instead. Thats all the dongle is - a tiny mobile phone but without any speakers/microphone/buttons so that only a PC/laptop is able to use it, not a person.

So, whatever your PC is set up to do, it will do through this instead.

we used one for a cuole of months when we moved house and lost broadband for a while.

used T mobile one - pay as you go. bought it for around £20, I think, this included an offer to top up first month's broadband for £3 (i think)

so, you buy it, plug into USB port, and it installs itself, and opens up a welcome file bit (like an install wizard)

you top up online (it lets you connect to do this bit!) using a credit card, and selsect what package you want (e if offer not on, then our mobile broadband is £2 per day, £10 per week, or 30 days for some other amoutn, can't remember, sorry) there are download limits as well (340 days is 1GB limit with T mobile, BUT once you run out, all that means is that you cannot download between 4pm and midnight. you can still check mail, read MN, catch up with the news, but no video content, or downloading on itunes, etc) outside 4pm to midnight, you can carry on as normal, even downloading.

as far as I know, you should be able to do outlooky stuff - once plugged in, it acts as a normal broadband connection (although not as fast, ime)

Aitch I've emailed you about this

ah yes cheers thanks olivia, i responded suitably JEALOUS of your pregnancy.
re downloads, will i be able to watch iplayer etc or will this cost fortunes?

They have a limit on how much you can download, so you'll "use it up" before the month is out if you do a lot of iPlayer etc on it. But it depends how much you want to do, and how long you need it to work for - I'm not sure how fast iPlayer would use up the limit.

iplayer takes up quite a lot of your limit.

eg, half an hour is about 350MB usually. downloading programmes on itunes the same.

but depends on when you want to watch it all.

if you are not tied to evenings, then you can merrily use your limit with T mobile, and then watch outside the hours of 4pm-midnight - as much as you want. (first month we used our limit watching news updates on the bbc site re: election. after that, we could still watch as much as we wanted (inc live streaming), but just not in the late afternoon/early evening.

btill, silverfrog, i got the t mobile one in the end. seemed like the best deal because it's 25 quid but then when you pay 2 pounds (one day's rate) you then access thirty days of free browsing. so not bad, i think. apparently if you buy your browsing by the gig 9and its fifteen quid per three gig) they wipe any leftovers at the end of the month anyway so you have to spend another fifteen to get back online. so the two quid per day or seven per week works out best for us i think as we really only want to use it when we're camping or on a wee break or whatever.

brill, silver. meant to say. not btill.

glad you're sorted.

sorry I was hopelessly vague with the costings - tbh, such is my MN addiction I didn't look at the costs - we just needed to get online. it took us nearly 3 months to get our landline broadband sorted after we moved house