David Cochrane

Huawei 220 USB Modem

Since moving to Galway in February two years ago I needed an ok internet connection, and was attracted to the offering from three mainly because it was cheap, only €19.99 a month with a download cap of 10gb. This is cheaper that the offerings from both Vodafone & O2 (€24.99 and €30.11 per month) and the download cap is much higher (10gb compared to Vodafone’s 5gb and o2’s 7.5gb).

I had the first broadband usb modem three came out with, which was the Huawei E220 – the one criticism I would have of this device, was that it is a bit big and has a small usb cable running out of it, this makes it hard to use if you’ve a laptop (or netbook) on your lap, as the weight of the modem pulling down on the usb cable can be enough to cause the connection to disconnect, which can be annoying.

Thus I decided to get a new mobile dongle, I was concerned about trying to upgrade, as three pretty much said I’d have to pay the full economic cost of a new modem (over €200). So I decided to simply take out a new contract, pay €49 for the E160G – it’s more stick-like and thus is much easier to use on the go.

But what to do with the old modem?

Well I had two options really, firstly I could cancel the earlier contract and just bin the old modem, or I could look at ways of using the usb modem, which I did.

I used the older usb modem and turned it into a mobile wifi connection.

Dovado UMR Broadband Modem

After a good bit of Googling, and finding a commerical interaction thread from a company called Dovado over on Boards.ie, I realised you can buy a piece of gadgetry that can turn a usb modem into a wifi connection.

So I have a wifi connection in my apartment, which I use my main laptop off, along with my iphone and netbook, and the housemate is free to use the wifi too (that said, he has the Vodafone mobile offering himself).

The Dovado UMR modem is sold in Ireland exclusively by Subnet Zero, though when I tried to buy it off them two weeks ago they fecked about a good bit, so I bought it from Infoferenda, which arrived in under a week.

* I know that Damien and Michele have worked extensively in looking at the area of mobile broadband, arguing that it really should be skinnyband, but whilst they all advertise big connections, with the exception of a bit of FTPing and watching the occasional Youtube video, I have no issues with speed, although the three connection does have a habit of a bit of downtime, particularly over in Islandbridge.