It might be better looking at the devices of this sort that are supported by Network Manager. It's a lot more than it used to be, that's for sure. :) Tom stuart bell wrote:

Kris Douglas wrote: On there now!

dave wrote:

I guess it's too late now but for future reference I'll post this anyway! If I had got here in time I would have strongly recommended not using 3 for your mobile broadband. In my experience their network coverage is wildly variable and, in general, performance is terrible. Me and my Dad use the service (me through my phone, Dad has a MF622 modem from 3) and both find that evening performance is noticeably worse than daytime. Also you tend to find devices flick between Orange and 3 networks because of their roaming agreement. This doesn't necessarily mean problems for you but it often does result in dropped network and calls for, especially if I'm on the move. I get this with my Nokia 6120 and my Dad says something similar happens with the USB modem although it may not be flicking between networks. It just drops from HSDPA to UMTS to GPRS and then bounces back and most of the time this results on a broken connection. Also, 3's customer service is utter shite. I had to take them to arbitration before they even listened to my complaints about the total lack of coverage in my area (even though their coverage maps showed full 3G coverage). This said, after almost 9 months of back-and-forth they did sort the problem quite effectively (new mast went up I think so) although I have yet to hear about a refund for the 9 months of service I didn't get! On the whole, I think it's a case of getting what you pay for. They're good value and the service is mostly passable depending on where you live but if you want something reliable, especially if you plan to use the device while you're moving (train, car) then I'd opt for Vodafone or T-Mobile (or possibly another network but I can only vouch for these two as I have used them). Jon 2009/6/7 dave <dave(a)staffslug.org.uk&gt;

stuart bell wrote: I have a Huawei E160G which works well (though the first one that I had was faulty and had to go back to the 3 shop). One problem that I had initially was that when you register on 3's website (so that you can top-up by credit card) it sends you the initial password as a text to the modem and I needed to use the Windows app to receive it. Does anyone know a Linux way of doing this? Putting the SIM in a phone would work too I suppose. Dave (B)