h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

May I first of all offer my most humble and sincere apologies for the failed bid to establish a live link up between the Hull and London meets. Due to technical issues beyond my control I was unable to get the new dongle to register.
Today, (mon), I contacted the mobile phone company concerned and discovered why. I've seen and dealt with process's in my time and seen what should be a simple process turn into a convoluted and complicated process but this one takes the biscuit.
I had to remove the sim card that came with the dongle and insert into my mobile phone. The company then sent me a text containing a one use only pin number. I then had to go online via my usual web connection to the phone company website. I had to register all my details and enter this one use pin number. Fine, so far so good. Registration accepted. I then transfer said sim card back to the dongle. Now I need to enter a 16 digit e-voucher number in order to 'top up' the sim card for use. There is NO facility online to do this. Instead I get given yet another phone number that I have to call. I call said number, and having spoke to a lady, who, in fairness, knew exactly what she was doing, the e-voucher number was duly entered and the dongle is now fully activated. The lady did say that the phone company were looking into this whole procedure as it seems they have acknowledged they haven't got it anywhere near right. The easiest way I could see is for them to have, say, upto 15minutes of 'airtime' on the dongle so that once the software is installed you can then register, top up and go. At present a new, unregistered dongle, times out once connected, in under 2 1/2 minutes, no where near long enough to fill in forms and register, especially taking into account time taken to download the several pages required to complete the process.
So there we go, I've tested said dongle and have to say, despite all the initial hassle, I'm impressed with the speed of connection and loading/downloading speeds. As a bonus, due to the hassle I've been given an extra 30 days use for free.

At this point I must send my gratitude and thanks to Lil and hubby as this dongle was actually a birthday present from them so many thanks again.

*giggles*


Now everybody knows lil supplied the dongle, and it is no wonder you couldn't get online on Saturday night

I don't see that you need to apologise, mate, it wasn't your fault!

Yeah, it was the fault of some virgins on a train!

Or am I getting confused?

Just be careful of the reception when you enter the tunnels... losing your connection can cause all sorts of trouble...

No need to apologise! We've all had dongle trouble at some point or other

I must admit to dongle trouble,

But at my age i'ts only to be expected!!!

We did alright, between us. We must order a for next year though, it'll probably be simpler

Post 3 I totally agree with

post 7 - can't say and would get yiked if I didand the tab's and creams didn't work anyway

Further to the saga of the dongle and its use, (or lack of in this case).
Yesterday I decided to give it a thorough road test so to speak. I disconnected from my usual web connection, activated said dongle and then proceeded to visit my usual web pages, obviously including hootoo. I did a quick speed test, looked impressive, download speed of 2.5mb, upload 412 kbs. So far so good. I click on sign in for hootoo. I wait. I wait some more. I wait even more. Hmmm, this ain't looking good. Then I find I'm on the home page for the mobile network the dongle is registered with. There is a message in a red box saying the device is 'Age Locked'. If I want to access sites that require authentication, sign in or other 'security info' then the mobile company are legally obliged to confirm the user is over 18.
Ooookkaaay, so I click on the age verification link and am given 3 options.
1. register a credit card, they will take £2.00 then immediately re-credit said £2.00. They do this to make sure its a 'working' credit card.
2. Call into the mobile phone store and produce driving licence, passport etc which will then be registered.
3. Phone a number and they will attempt to verify age via other details such as post code, electoral roll and the like.
I chose option 3 as we don't have a shop for this company nearby anyway and I don't have, never have had, a credit card. (I do have one of those 'pay as you go' type credit cards but for some strange reason they wouldn't accept this. I think its because you don't need a bank a/c to have one of these but I'm just guessing)
After making the call and going through the question/answer session age verified at last. I had to wait approx. 30 minutes for it to get on the system and the final bit was I had to 'electronically sign' a declaration stating that as the registered user I would not allow anyone under the age of 18 to use or have access to, the dongle and that if I did I was legally obliged to 'switch on' the age lock device to prevent access to user generated sites, sites requiring sign in or banking sites.
What the age lock does basically is lets you look but you cannot use, post, access banking etc.
I supose its fair to say its actually to the companies credit that they make the effort to prevent minors accessing inappropriate content on the web or getting into other mischief on social networking sites etc.

I'm off to break into Fort Knox now, it'll be a doddle compared to getting this thing to work.

mmmh! over 18 years ? I'll have to look at your birth certificate son

Good grief what a palaver!

Who was that with? Mine was an O2 one and it worked straight away. I really feel I need to replace it.

It's on T Mobile. My smart-phone is with them, and I had t go through the same unlock procedure to be able to surf the net. It's very annoying they won't take debit cards - I'm like BMT, I've got debit, but not credit cards. Fortunately the shop is a 10 minute cycle away from here.

On the Irish 3 network, you can use the dongles as long as you like with no credit as long as you're browsing only the 3 website. This allows you to register, top up, etc. without any great difficulty. Still more complicated than it should be, but not nearly as much hassle as your account of T-Mobile.

Disclaimer: I've not used the dongle in a while. It may have become better or worse since.

TRiG.