Kill Two Birds With One Stone - Get Yourself Mobile Internet Which Can Double Up To Get Your Office Online Too
In the third part of our series on the importance of broadband, and more precisely what you do if it fails, we continue to look at the options.
Part II advocated an old-style dial up account. For alot of people that may suffice. One of the drawbacks however is speed.
Remember the whistling noise as your modem dials up and connects? It takes time to connect, and browsing the internet will take an age.
One option is to buy a 3G card. Usually slotting into a spare bay in a laptop, it’s ideal for those who need broadband speeds, perhaps to connect up to the office, while out and about. More conveniently, you can now choose USB modems so they can equally plug into a PC or file server.
Alone, many businesses can justify the cost. At the time of writing, for around £25 a month, you can have broadband speeds on the move.
However, to make sure it is a valid backup to your office broadband, it’s important to firstly check you will get coverage at your office. When you’re on the move, it may not be as critical if you can’t get a signal.
Check out Vodafone’s 3G Coverage Map
And of course, your broadband may fail when the remote worker is away from the office!
The important point is the speed. It is significantly quicker than an old-style dial-up account using a standard phone line. And the benefit of making someone mobile may add up to the right choice for your business.
NEXT: Wireless internet access
Previous articles:
Part I: Broadband Is Down! How Small Businesses Can Cope If They Lose Their Lifeline To The World
Part II: Broadband Is Down! How Small Businesses Can Cope: Retro Internet Access
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5 responses so far ↓
1 Broadband Is Down! How Small Businesses Can Cope: Part II, Retro-Internet Access | IT Support @ Multisolutions // Jan 14, 2008 at 8:33 pm
[...] NEXT: You want back-up to your broadband, but you could do with a little more speed and less downtime. [...]
2 Catherine Lawson // Jan 15, 2008 at 2:55 am
Hi Ian - we use 3G. Obviously it’s not as fast as broadband, but it’s very useful as a back up when you’re out and about. And you can even get ones that work abroad now.
Catherine Lawson’s last blog post..And Modest Business Founder Of The Year Award Goes To …….
3 Ian Denny // Jan 15, 2008 at 7:03 am
I’ve got a 3G Mobile Broadband card which can get speeds of up to 1.8MB. There are now cards that can reach speeds of up to 7.2MB.
Realising that boradband speeds are often misleading, I can vouch for having experienced close to the top speeds pretty regularly.
I’ve not tested the newer cards, so I can’t specifically comment.
I do know the cards/packages you mean, and the earlier ones did get 0.3MB which still compares fiarly well with a dial-up modem.
My problem is that I’ve only tested them in areas of the map that are well covered so it could be that coverage may not be as good.
Anybody else experienced the newer cards? Or found good coverage?
4 Stephen // Mar 10, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Btw you can now also get 3g routers from ebuyer. They do normal adsl AND falls back to 3g when it goes down, beats relying on usb modems etc
5 Ian Denny // Mar 11, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Stephen,
Great tip. We’ve checked them out and found a few that take our fancy.
I think we’ll have a play with them to test them out…
Ian Denny’s last blog post..Microsoft Supremo Clarion Call For Businesses To Help The Poor
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