Thread: You have to check everything

This is satellite yes?

3G/4G I suspect. I have a 12 month prepaid.

I used to have one of these but no longer use it. Instead I have a mobile plan that includes an appropriate amount of data. Now I just share my mobile connection with my various other devices when needed by enabling it as a wireless access point. Much more convenient and cost effective.

I have a $140/16GB 2yrs expiry for the iPad, and another for the 3G/4G WiFi modem. Phone has a 1GB/month data allowance.

At $140 for 2yrs prepaid, that's $5.83/month to have cellular data access on my devices when I have no bricks and motar based wifi access ... pretty cheap.

The 3G/4G WiFi modem gets used when camping to provide wifi to the campsite (using a 6m telescopic fibreglass mast with a 6.5db antenna).

Where do you get an antenna and how do you connect to the wifi modem. Mine is a small portable unit

WiFi modem has 2x antenna inputs (3G + 4G/MIMO).
https://www.telcoantennas.com.au/sit...r-aircard-790s

They also do telescopic masts, but the unit I purchased they no longer have on the web site. Collapses to less than 2m length.

I think the antenna used was this one ... https://www.telcoantennas.com.au/sit...linear-antenna

I have been using a Wifi modem similar to the one in Fluids' link for some time now, but mine has no means of connection to an external aerial.

Yesterday, someone from Telstra in Perth called me and offered to review all of our phone / data services (including house phone and Wifi). I ended up closing the account that the Wifi modem was on (had recently jumped from $49 per month to $59 per month, and I don't use it all that much these days anyway).

Instead, we now have a "shared" data plan that gives us a much greater data allowance, shared between my mobile phone and the wife's mobile phone. If I don't use all of my "allowance" and she goes over hers, she can use the balance of my allowance before being charged for any extra usage (and vice versa).

One of the advantages of this is that I have a phone cradle in the car connected to either a 6.5 db gain or a 9 db gain aerial on the bulbar. With my phone in this cradle and the phone's "hot spot" activated, we get good internet connection on the road and in many areas where we would not previously have been able to make connection. Works well for us - and with the changes made to our accounts yesterday, we've saved over $100 per month overall.

It appears that Telstra are currently reviewing all of their available phone and data service plans at the moment. If you just leave everything alone, it seems that their charges have all gone up (all our mobile phone and data plans went up by $10 per month at the end of December). But if you review your plans with them, they now offer new plans, often better suited to your actual requirements, at a lower price than the plan that you might have previously been on. Certainly worked this way for us, both with mobile phone and data, and also for the house bundle. Maybe they are being forced to be a bit more competitive.

I know we could probably do better with another service provider (according to their sales people anyway), but I still need the coverage that you can only get with Telstra - very few of the remote minesites etc that I travel to use any phone service carrier other than Telstra.