3G Connection - Need help and advice!

[Deleted]

Hey all,

As I am moving to Uni in a few weeks time, I am thinking of picking up a 3G dongle to take with me. The Uni Halls do have wired connection, however most non academic things are blocked (I realise this is a pretty unusual practice for Universities, I'm also not here to debate whether this is right/wrong) I'm fully aware that playing things like WoW on a 3G dongle isn't going to be realistically possible, however I'd still like to invest in one.

Thing is though, these things seem like they're made for businesspeople who like to send emails on the train or whatever, they don't seem to be aimed at your average internet user. As an example, I went into the "3" shop in town and got a leaflet about the pay as you go dongle information. They suggest that 1GB of data will equal about 10 hours browsing, or the equivilent of 5x4minute video downloads or 32x4min songs. And this data isn't cheap. It seems like a bit of a raw deal considering the vast amount of data I must use on my current home connection.

Anyway I was looking for help/advice on dongles really. I'm going to be using this mostly for browsing the internet, social networking, watching youtube videos and that sort of stuff, most likely downloading very little - certainly no videos or music. I really don't know what to expect with a dongle, and though money isn't a major issue, I'd rather not go out and waste £30 trying it out to find out that I was grossly misinformed and it isn't worth it.

Anyone have any dongle experiences? Which companies seem to give the best coverage/prices? How much data can I realistically expect to use? (As I've said I don't overly trust the guidelines they're giving and I don't intend to download really)

Any help is appreciated.

[ispano]

Well you fell into a small logic trap. "watching youtube videos" "most likely downloading very little - certainly no videos or music" Streaming is mostly the same as downloading, you just watch as it downloads. The downside is that if you want to watch it again later, you redownload(stream) it.

[Deleted]

See this is the kind of information I need, but am lacking.

As their neat little chart states, 1 GB of data is squal to about 5 4minute video clips, or about 20 minutes of video download. This is what I find confusing. On the home connection I'm on now, I will watch or "stream" about 2 hours of video a day I'd guess. That's about 6GB, on top of downloading various things, playing WoW. Surely the numbers can't add up as we don't pay an extortionate amount for our connection.

[darnoldtux]

The amount of data that goes through a 3g connection is limited that low due to the fact that cell phone towers can only process so much data at a time. They have to process Data as well as call routing, Location information sent out and received from cell phones. A 3g connection is not ideal. I have heard from a friend that uses his 3g connection to play wow. his latency is not the best but he says it works. The downside is downloading patches. Some wow patches will eat up your data quicker than it should. a 2gb data service is fine for most people you just have to make sure you don't go over. most companies have monitoring tool that allow you to check data usage. So limiting how many videos you watch in a day will be a good idea.

[ispano]

It's an estimate, since videos can vary in quality as well as resolution which all affect the size. But yes, you can very easily use that much data with 2 hours of video. Even youtube video.

---------- Post added 2011-08-24 at 12:19 PM ----------

But yes, the connections as they make them aren't designed for what you want to use it for. It's for when you need to check a site or email on the go, not watching video everyday, they put the limits and overage fees on there just for the people who do that type of thing. I think it's wrong personally, but that's why they do it.

[Deleted]

I have, like Darnoldtux, heard it is possible to play WoW on a 3G connection, though not ideally and not really in an endgame raiding environment. I'd guess that WoW doesn't take up an especially large amount of data transfer if this is the case? Though of course, patching will be an issue.

The idea of limits and overage fees are exactly why I'd want to go for a pay as you go connection. I appreciate the advice and think I'll probably look at getting one to see how much I am using. I've heard that a lot of them come with monitors to see how much data you're using, so I guess I can sort of tentatively step around and see what uses how much.

[Skelly]

I'm just going to clear the WoW thing up. You can easily play WoW on a 3G connection. WoW uses about 5 KBps of data, which can get you about 20 hours of play time per GB.

I play WoW on my laptop tethered to my iPhone all the time without problems as long as I have good reception.

I've also done 10 mans tethered, which was fine, but it probably takes a bit more data. I have no idea about 25 mans.

[Deleted]

I'm just going to clear the WoW thing up. You can easily play WoW on a 3G connection. WoW uses about 5 KBps of data, which can get you about 20 hours of play time per GB.

I play WoW on my laptop tethered to my iPhone all the time without problems as long as I have good reception.

I've also done 10 mans tethered, which was fine, but it probably takes a bit more data. I have no idea about 25 mans.

That's... odd. But thank you for your information!

I find it very odd, if that's the case, that playing WoW can use such little data, but streaming a 4minute video on youtube can use such a lot.

[exdeath202]

It depends on your area. My area has a normal-medicore cable connection, i get 6MB/sec and around 160 latency in wow, howerver since it is a village, most people arent using 3g and when i used tethering to share my iphone connection to the pc, the 3G connection was as fast as the cable one, and i had LOWER latency in wow WHILE using ventrilo for the whole raid. However, somedays i get 2k latency. I tried in a big city and the connection was ok too. In my village some people get faster connection by 3G than by cable. I am from Spain btw, and 3-6 MB /s is the minimun for cable ADSL rigth now. And i can confirm playing wow is possible with 56k connection (those with a 10kb/s download speed), i only had lag when i joined a 40 man bg or raid, 10 man raid was almost ok.

[Deleted]

I have, like Darnoldtux, heard it is possible to play WoW on a 3G connection, though not ideally and not really in an endgame raiding environment

All bosses in 25ICC[H] down with HSPA+ connection w/o very big problems.

Choose an option with free transfer at night. You can download anything you want between 0:00 to 8-9 o'clock.

[Deleted]

All bosses in 25ICC[H] down with HSPA+ connection w/o very big problems.

Choose an option with free transfer at night. You can download anything you want between 0:00 to 8-9 o'clock.

Very interesting. Are you talking about a 3G USB dongle? If so, how would I go about finding one with free transfer at night? A quick google is resulting in nothing.

@Exdeath202 - AFAIK the connection around me is fine. The connection quality isn't really an issue to me, the issue is whether or not it's worth me getting the connection in the first place!

[Shakadam]

3g/4g plans varies a lot in different countries it seems, I can get 15mbit/s for 14€/month and up to 42mbit/s for 24€/month with no data caps. There are also similar prepaid options available.

Now for the technical part, you can play on a 1mbit/s connection if you want, but your ping will be quite high. Even on high speed plans your ping will suffer, that's jsut how it is with wireless connections.

[ispano]

That's... odd. But thank you for your information!

I find it very odd, if that's the case, that playing WoW can use such little data, but streaming a 4minute video on youtube can use such a lot.

Why do you think it's odd though? Do you think that WoW sends graphical data back and forth all the time? No reason to since everyone has the data files already. It only sends what little data is needed for positioning and casting, etc. None of that is overly large. While video, even compressed is huge in comparison. It's like a text file vs a video only a few seconds long.

[acoolnamehere]

why not just use ur school internet for things that you can browse and for things that are blocked, use ur dongle? its kinda how i use my wifi on my phone.. i have wifi on all the time, but whenever im not in a wifi hotspot, it switches over to 4g using my internet data plan. (wifi will always take over 4g if it is able to) i think it would be the same for your school, but i may be wrong

[fords42]

I remember raiding in TBC on dialup when BT screwed up our ADSL connection. Ah, happy days.....I don't think!

OP, 3 do a deal where you get 15 GB of data for £15.99 a month for 2 years (courtesy of uswitch.com). It's a pretty good deal and 3's network is very good; my husband's phone contract is with 3 and the only place the signal failed us was when we were in north Wales. Mind you, everyone's signal fails when you're driving through Snowdonia ;-)

[Deleted]

@Fords42 - I was looking at the deal on the 3 site, the one that you've mentioned, and it does seem pretty good. However a 2 year contract isn't something I really want to jump into given that I don't know enough about the area, and this situation is probably only going to last me a year anyway. However that's good to know, cheers

@acoolnamehere - Thats sort of the plan! But my University blocks a lot of sites, as well as Peer to Peer data transfer in most circumstances. Apparently they had a big issue with being threatened with legal action a while ago because students were illegally downloading music.

@ispano - I guess you're right, a lot of WoW files are stored locally. This is why I'm posting for help really, when it comes to connection I know very little.

@Shakadam - Unfortunately you're right, different countries do things differently and the UK seems to be a little more awkward. All of the pay monthly options available that I've found work around data caps, rather than download speeds. There are different download speeds available I gather, upto about 21 Mbps, but your monthly charge seems to be based around the size cap you get, rather than the speed you get which is pretty frustrating to work around limiting yourself.

[Skelly]

@ispano - I guess you're right, a lot of WoW files are stored locally. This is why I'm posting for help really, when it comes to connection I know very little.

Basically everything that is humanly possible to put in the client is in the client. Blizzard can't even update your tooltips without a patch because they're on the client. Anything that is hotfixable is done by the servers, but hotfixes are usually just changes in how the Server computes what happens in game ie damage or drops or npc behaviour. Those are just about the only things sent between server and client.