Vodafone dongle-early redemption penalty?

Help required, please. We are half-way through an eighteen month contract with Vodafone having bought bought a mobile dongle which plugs into our laptop's USB port.  The reception has been getting steadily worse and worse, and when there is a signal at all, we are getting near dial-up speed only- and paying around 45 euros a month inc. iva.  Has anyone any experience of getting out of their Vodafone contract early, or has a contact number (which I am unable to find anywhere)?  My husband is dependent on a good interenet connection for his business, so we need to do something as soon as possible.  Any help gratefully received! We live in the Orihuela area.  Thank you,  Donna

It's 150 euros for ADSL contracts so probably something similar for the dongle/mobile broadband.

David

Do you have (or know anyone) with a Vodafone handset? Dial 123 and you can get an English speaker.

Mark

Hi Mark

Do you if dialing 123 on a Movistar network, works also.

Hi Donna,

I have had a pay as you go dongle with vodaphone which was an absolute nightmare. When you go and top up your credit if the shop does not activate it properly the credit runs out really quick. The shop will not take responsibility and i have had endless heated discussions over the phone with Vodafone which actually charged my a fortune on my mobile.

I did get to the point, after it costing around 150 euros a month, that i need to ditch this.

There is a number of dongles on the market but the thing you have to do is check the signal for your main area of operation. i.e your home address.

After checking the signals for them all ironically vodafone came out best for where i live.

So,,,,,, I checked the cost of the contracts.

If you purchase the dongle with a seperate fee you can get a contract that you can cancel at any time around 35 euros from The carphone people in DOs Maris.

If you get a free dongle then unfortunatly you are tied to an 18 month contract.

Soz

I bought a Vodafone pasasyougo dongle last year from Dos Mares, San Javier.

The thing would'nt work which I found to be due to the dongle being old stock and needed firmware installing to work with Vista. I had to figure this out because the Vodafone shop staff were clueless.

Whilst the connection was good I found the cost prohibitive . 19E for 250MB with little or no warning as to when it was expired and no way of monitoring it.

The same product from Vodafone UK  is a fraction of the cost to run........................

Back to the internet cafe then.

Many thanks, everyone, for replies.  Please keep them coming!  -Does anyone have a number that we could call (other than the 123+Vodafone handset) to actually speak to someone from Vodafone?  Donna

Hi Donna.

Sometimes when your computer memory is full of junk it may slow down your browser.

Have you tried clearing your history, cookies, temporary internet files, etc on your laptop?

Also doing a disk cleanup will free up a lot of space that maybe slowing your computer down especially if you are using internet explorer. I prefer firefox as it seems twice as fast .

We were thinking of going with Vodafone , but may have to do some more homework to see which is the best option for ADSL.

Whether considering fixed line or dongle it is worth going to somebody like the Phone House house who supply all the products and get them to test the signal of your area with each supplier.

I went to the individuals such as T Mobile and they tested the signal for me before I finally settled for a Vodafone dongle. It is on contract but if you purchase the dongle you get a contract which you can cancel at any time. This way you dont tie yourself up for 18 months in which time the cost of broadband should come down and service improve.