OK-I've  got a 3G mobile dongle, and recently got hold of an Adsa 2G/3G SIM card recently, to stick in an old 2G phone to use as a house phone(landline ditched a year or more ago, as i can live with 8p/min on calls with no £15/month line rental) . But ,on topping up £5 ,i got a present from Asda of 12GB data. Tried the SIM in 3 dongle- no good, so I then tried linking Mobile to PC .First on W7 - no joy, so then tried on XP- great,but very slow-something like 115k speed. Any ideas?.

115KBps, I would be very happy in I ever got that on my 3G mobile (usually 40-45KBps); do Asda piggy-back on 02?? Cos the sub-carriers like GiffGaff get throttled to death by 02; my next phone - assuming 02 dont get their act together, will be getting a 4G sim for Three or BTEE (much as I hate them)

Be careful, the 12GB of data may not include tethered data (ie. laptop linked to phone, mobile hotspot etc.) usually the free data is intended to be used only on a smartphone itself with the sim card. Chances are that on a smart phone you'll get full network speed, whereas tethered it will either not work at all, or very slowly. Even worse you maybe paying per MB for the slow tethered data.

The 3G dongle is network specific and unless you know how to unlock it from the network it is on and then alter the APN settings to the correct ones to get the dongle working it will never work with anything other than the original networks sim.

Edited 27 December, 201510 yr by mannyo

You mention that you put it into a 2G mobile... that's your problem there! 2G (GPRS) data max speed is 115kb/s.

 

To get anything faster you would need a 3G mobile phone.

 

The 12GB of data only lasts up to 8am on 1st January 2016 so if you desperately want to use it then I would buy yourself a cheap 3G phone quick!

 

https://mobile.asda.com/12gbchristmas

 

Phil

Be careful, the 12GB of data may not include tethered data (ie. laptop linked to phone, mobile hotspot etc.) usually the free data is intended to be used only on a smartphone itself with the sim card. Chances are that on a smart phone you'll get full network speed, whereas tethered it will either not work at all, or very slowly. Even worse you maybe paying per MB for the slow tethered data.

The 3G dongle is network specific and unless you know how to unlock it from the network it is on and then alter the APN settings to the correct ones to get the dongle working it will never work with anything other than the original networks sim.

Never got it to work, and at the risk of the SIM damaging the 3 contacts. SIM is one of these designed to be used in a phone with a lock down tab (as opposed to slide in), with a standard skeleton, holding a mini skeleton ,with a micro one inside that , and i think there was problems in contact with the dongle and SIM. However, I know the 3 dongle is not Network specific /locked, as i'd still got about 10 days left of paid for data on my old T-Mobile SIM,and i managed to use it on the 3 dongle. For anyone interested , Asda use the EE NETWORK,as opposed to the dying/about to die Sainsbury network ,which used Voddy. I've still got my old phone 3 SIM , which has a few quid of credit on it, but the 3 dongle don't like the 3 phone SIM.