We’re off on our annual road-trip soon which this year takes us through France, Italy and onto Greece and the Islands and this year we’ve decided to take with us a 3 MiFi Huawei E5830 mobile WiFi modem so that we can connect via WiFi in the remotest of places.
I wanted to share with you exactly how we go about getting our hands on the MiFi dongle and our experiences of both unlocking it and roaming with it, the reason we want to unlock our MiFi is because of the pretty hefty data roaming rates set out by the UK networks, we’ll be buying a local SIM card to use in our unlocked MiFi once we arrive in Greece to save on charges.
Unlocked MiFi from 3 Mobile
Part 1 – MiFi Purchase and Unlock
It was all made to sound pretty easy, simply buy the 3 Mobile MiFi online for £39.99 with no contract, call the network and request an unlocked version which is then posted out with a jiffy bag for us to return the locked unit back to them.
Nothing’s ever easy though! Firstly we were told 3 -5 working days for delivery of the unlocked MiFi, after 5 days we called up the (India based) customer services and was told that our request hadn’t made it through the system. We were getting a little desperate as we’d left it a bit late in the day before we left the country so things got a little heated with the (very friendly) customer service representative and we were promised the unlocked MiFi would be re-ordered and be with us in just 3 days.
Amazing! It arrived in two working days, BUT not as an unlocked unit. The enclosed letter explained that this was a replacement for our ‘faulty’ MiFi!
Plan B: Unlock the MiFi ourselves, personally I’m very wary of websites that claim to unlock mobile phones and broadband dongles as it involves downloading software etc but as we only have a couple of days before we leave I decided to take the leap and have to admit I was really impressed.
I used unlocked-dongle.co.uk which cost £13.50, they ask you to register and then make your payment after which they send out an email containing the unlock software for unlocking the MiFi. The email arrived around 1 hour after I placed the order and I had the MiFi unlocked within minutes! (This is after not reading the instructions properly first and negating to remove the SIM card!)
Unlock Software for 3 MiFi (Huawei E5830)
So, we’re all set for our travels with an unlocked MiFi ready to go! I’ll post Part 2 of our Travelling Abroad with 3 MiFi once we hit Greek shores and hopefully not have too many negative comments to tell you about!
MiFi on 3 Mobile
UPDATE:
Since making this trip we now use Wi-Fi Direct and a separate Samsung Galaxy S2 which we buy a local SIM card for with unlimited 3G data, works brilliant and can connect multiple devices!
I am off to Poland with my unlocked MiFI on Sunday, hoping to do the same. I tried a Vodafone data/phone sim card in my unlocked Mifi. I managed to get it to light up 3 of the indicators, but the 4th important “connected to internet” indicator would not stay on. I’m hoping a Polish sim will connect.
Thanks for this. I had just managed to send a question to three uk asking whether I can get an unlocked MiFi. Looks like I’ll be better off going to unlocked-dongle.co.uk.
It’s may be too late for you but a couple of tips (which may be of help to others):
- don’t touch Wind in Italy with a bargepole. The three service is excellent (although as in the UK, some of the IT systems can be a nightmare);
- you need a ‘codice fiscale’ to get a PAYG SIM from Tre italia but the staff in any TIM shop shoulod be able to organize this for you (or alternatively there’s a site called something like codicefiscale.com)
- the codice fiscale needs to be entered without spaces;
- if the staff are having trouble finding UK/regno unido on the system tell them to digitare ‘GB’ (yep the three systems people strike again);
My ZTE USB modem (with 5 euros credit) was a bargain at 19€.
If you have a pc and have 1/2 an hour to spare using PSAS you can read the unlock code from most Huawei Wifi Dongles. PSAS is a shareware program. Depending on your modem you may need a special program to enter your unlock code. This can be easily found on the web free of charge.
where’s part two?
I’m using WIND from here in Lake Garda to read this blog on a laptop while my mother is watching ITV on my Nexus 7 and my partner is on Facebook using her Kindle HD…..25 euros a month unlimited use…a bargain!
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