Ambre Solaire

Help

Excuse my ignorance, nearly a "twirly" can anyone shed a light into a darkened room !

We will be living in Spain for 3 months and the owner of the property has offered us a Vodafone dongle for 49 Eu per month, but I think he said downloads are limited

We have SKY at home, but to save taking the box over, we want to know is it possible to watch SKY on a laptop using the dongle.

If it is possible, does this count as a download ?

We want to install SKYPE on the laptop,to keep in touch with family, again is this counted as a download and charged or would it come under the 49Eu per month banner ?

Apologies if the above doesn't read right !

Regards

shaggymon

49 euro a month will include a limited amount of download. someone else will probably tell you how much. Anything over this limit is charged at quite an expensive rate. I do not think you will be able to watch Sky on the internet as you are not in the UK (unless you fool the system by going through a proxy server in the UK which will probably cost). If you can fool the system, watching Sky TV will quickly eat up your download allowance.

Skype should be ok although the video may be a bit dodgy as I understand that the Vodafone dongle connection is not particularly fast. Skype usage would count towards your download allowance and be charged for if you exceeded the allowance.

jimenato

Hi AS

Depending upon where you are, speed and reliability can be very poor indeed. I used one for over a year and it was never fully satisfactory and at times it was unusable - I have now given it up and use a landline which is hugely better and much cheaper.

I would advise using a landline rather than a dongle. If you cannot get a landline and have to use a dongle bear in mind the following:

Download limit is 3GB I think.
Dongles are 39€ + IVA, so less than 49€
In over a year of use I never hit the download limit nor anywhere near it. You would do if you want to download movies etc. - don't get a dongle if you want to do that.
Using Skype over a dongle is possible but frustrating and unreliable
Test it if you can before committing. Use
http://www.speedtest.net/
Upload speed is important for Skype - it should be 200Mb/s or more. Dongle download speeds are advertised at 7000Mb/s but I never got more than 1000.

It depends where you are though. In the Campo where we are speed and reliability might be very poor but in a town it could well be better.

Hope that helps.

pete_l

No, it isn't. Plus, there's more to getting Sky than just having a Sky digibox. Depending on where you are in Spain you'll need a much bigger dish - ranging from massive to ''''''ing enormous. Unless the place you'll be staying already has one, it'd be an expensive thing to buy and then leave behind after only 3 months.

Yes, it is a very large download, as is youtube or anything else that shows video content.[/quote]

It does. Even if you can get Skype to work, mobile internet is at best slow, unreliable and "choppy". If you are in a town then you'll probably get better signal, but then again if you were in a town you'd have a landline phone and broadband.

Neil29649

Hi AS, in which area will you be living?

Ambre Solaire

Many thanks for the information/advice. It really is a mine field to the non
IT person !, age doesn't help either.

We will be living in a small hamlet outside Iznajar Cordoba. The owner of the property has a huge disc on the side of the property.

The property owner currently pays 49 eu per month to Vodaphone, there is a landline in the house, which is being ceased as they are relocating back to England

All we want to do on the laptop is on line banking and keep in touch with the family, thought Skype would be a way of doing that.

missile

If the dish works and it is pointed at the correct satellite, you will get most of the free to air channels with your sky box / TV and more channels if you have a subscription card.

I have used Vodaphone UK dongle (£25) in an emergency and it worked fine for e mail and skype, but it was expensive to use .

Neil29649

I'm not sure what the coverage for the 3g dongle is like in Iznajar.

You may be as well asking someone from there.

snikpoh

It might be more prudent to use an internet cafe for banking and a cheap mobile to keep in contact.

The Guy

Most of the sky packages - at least 50-60% of what you pay for - can be available on an 80cm dish...as can ITV1 and C4 and Five (with a sky card) at the moment...
so you may get eurosport 1, but not eurosport2, you can get sky sports1,2,3 but not SS4 or SSNews...you may get hallmark+1, but not hallmark.

But if you want the free to air (ie nothing to do with sky or a sky package at all!) ITV2,3,4 and BBCs thats when you need a big dish.

missile

Please note, IT ghurus advise against using internet cafe for online banking.

Neil29649

Very good advice.

xxfrecklesxx

Hi,

Ive had the Vodafone dongle for 3+ years now...

It works out 45€ a month including IVA I get 3GB a month at fast speed, If I go over 3GB the speed goes to dial-up (very slow) but I dont get charged extra as its supposed to be unlimited.

I use Skype on mine, its good from PC to PC but if I phone a landline with it, then the quality is not so good.

I dont download movies as it uses a lot of MB and takes ages.

A friend in the village has Vodafone through their land line and its very good and very fast... I think they get, wireless? internet, and a land line and its cheaper than the dongle.

One thing....They (Vodafone) tell people in my village and in the mountain where i am that you cant get 3G (the fast speed) but I get it, its not the greatest singal, but its good enough to be fast. And other friends round her get it to.

Jen

Ambre Solaire

Thanks for the info Jen, can I ask what may appear a thick question, but how do you know how much mb or gb you have used, does it show on screen ?

I have been told such conflicting information, that dongle permitting, I will post what happened with my dongle when I get to my lovely house up the hill

Regards

xxfrecklesxx

Yes it does show you...you have a ''view usage'' button.. though Im sure that when my daughter used to use it in hers, and then I put it back in mine then I did not show what she had used and visa-versa...

Also when I first used it the limit is set to 500MB...(and gives you a warning to say you have reached it (though it does not stop it working or going over that) and I just had to alter the setting to 3GB... which is easy to do...

Ive only gone over 3GB once and that was when I was using video cam a lot.