I have been researching this very thing this week and have discovered that ‘3’ mobile can supply what they call a MiFi unit on various packages.

They use a Huawei MiFi unit which you pre-pay for on a monthly package that suits you and from that unit you can run up to three devices wirelessly. I will be going for the GBP 18.99 package which provides you with Gb15, the contract is for 2 years.

Does anyone have any experience of this particular unit on the cut and can perhaps tell us if this is indeed better than using a dongle?

Cheers

Ainslo 

I have a MiFi setup from Three. It’s brilliant. I’m not sure whether it’s the same model as the one you’re talking about as I bought mine off t’internet. The Mifi unit sits inside the boat plugged into the 240v supply (make sure you have a 240v supply on your boat). I have my dongle attached to a pole on the roof with a USB extension lead running between the dongle and the MiFi unit. I haven’t checked to see how many devices will work simultaneously from it, but it’s certainly good enough for my laptop, phone and Kindle.

Sounds good enough to me, I will stick to the plan and go for one of these ;o)

I use a 3G wireless router attached to an external aerial. The router takes any 3G broadband sim (I use PAYG Three network). 3G signal here at the marina quite weak but the external aerial picks up a consistent signal and the wireless router enables me to connect an iMac, laptop, iPhone and PS3 – which is very useful. Two of my neighbors have adopted the same set up and are pleased with the result, especially after traveling the network for 3 months earlier this summer.

I can concur with the comments on 3. I’ve tried several of the major networks over the years and 3 is the only one that I haven’t managed to run out of signal with. And we do a lot of travelling.

As someone else as suggested, the WiFi dongle is the best way. I hang mine in the window most of the time, twice I’ve had to run it outside and put it on the top of our cratch to get a good signal, but believe me that’s a lot better than any of the others I’ve tried.

Interesting reading, thanks all. 

I’m not sure how much of a minority I might be in but, do any current frequent cruisers also like to play on-line games such as World of Warcraft and, if so, can anyone advise what, if any, set-up might or will work?

Thanks for that, it pretty much sums up what I thought but I’ll carry on looking around to see if I can boost bandwidth in some way (when I am not in the depths of the wilds of course). Failing that, perhaps boating will cure me of my gaming addiction 

We use 3’s MiFi 3g wireless router as well. Another of its advantages is that you can just unplug it from its cradle and take it out and about with you. We have had several moorings with poor/average signal but only one with no signal what so ever, which I think is pretty good over seven months.