Georgie Casey

Finally got some degree of broadband net access to our house here a few miles outside Ennis, County Clare. ADSL never worked according to the eircom website and cable was obviously a non runner when you’re out in the middle of nowhere. Then last week I heard that three were offering broadband of up to 3.6megabits/second using the 3g phone network.

I ordered the PC card for my laptop but my laptop only has an express card slot like most new models. Don’t know why three offer obsolete equipment. But I rang asking to swop for the USB modem and they had it out in one working day.

Set it up grand but I’m only getting download speeds of about 30kilobytes/second storage owing to the bad network coverage. The software that comes with it shows how many ‘bars’ you have and I only ever have one or zero sometimes which cuts out the connection. I tried it at my sisters place which is closer to town and got over 100kilobytes/second. Still, 30kb/second is 10 times quicker than crappy dialup. Definitely a good option for people with few broadband options.