mobile broadband

[citygirl]

Anyone know best plans/rates/etc.

We have internet where I am moving but it is slowwwwwww. Fine for email, etc but not good for skype calls. Which is an issue since that's how I work. No option to get it through phone lines b/c no ground phone lines out here.

So anyway, am thinking mobile broadband card that I can plug into my laptop when I need to make calls. Anyone know who provides besides movistar?

Thanks!

 

[Hellek]

Personal has offers but I have mixed experiences. At some places it worked fine, at other places it was horribly slow. Sometimes the speed was fine but the connection was interrupted very frequently.

Claro also has mobile broadband but I have no experience except that I once was on a long-distance bus with WiFi access (which was routed through a Claro mobile broadband connection). It worked ok but speed was slow (which does not say anything since I don't know how many other passengers I was sharing the connection with). Until we left the city it seemed quite reliable though.

I suppose you have a DNI. If you don't, prepaid goes for around 60 pesos per week which is quite a lot.

 

[tomdesigns]

Claro has worked well for me all over Argentina with the USB wifi modem.. Skype phone phone has worked well for me with this connection also. I only use it when I am traveling.. can be spotty coverage when traveling but in and around cities has been well worth it for me so far.

 

[yhemay]

movistar sucks, used Claro is better in comparison

 

[ben]

don't know much about rates, I know claro has decent quality/speed, I use a tethered iPhone with movistar and can't really complain (much...)

 

[Zissou]

I've used Claro and found it to be definitely suitable for skype calls.

 

[French jurist]

That's 24 months I'm using a tethered iPhone using Claro (3G therefore = same transmission towers used for the chip/usb modems) :

Speed is really fluctuant :
- At times I run bittorrent all night long and am able to download 3 gigas in one night (d/l at around 220 kbps)
- 60% of the time, my top speed is rather around 25/30 kbps which could be the lower limit to be able to use Skype properly.

Also, I've noticed (that's logical) that I get a better average speed when I'm at home (home = campos, cows & horses all around) than when I'm in the city center (very often the 3G network works really bad there : have to switch to Edge).

Since you'll rely on it for business, I'd take two connections in order to switch when one goes weak (I don't think operators use the same transmission towers, do they?!).

 

[citygirl]

Hmm.. my other thought was simply to buy an iphone here to use for skype. Like I said, our wireless (campo) is fine for email, etc but just isn't fast enough for skype.

I'm not opposed to getting another cellphone just for skype.

 

[French jurist]

Just make sure you can jailbreak the iPhone baseband/OS when you buy one (although it might not be needed to use Skype I guess) !

 

[citygirl]

Shouldn't need to jailbreak it if i'm just using it for skype correct? The iphone supports it.