The miserable sods (vodafone) did not repay me the price of the data modem (49.99) when I left it back (within the 10 days). Guy in shop took the package from me and told me ‘That would be alright’. I took this to mean that they would send my back the price of the modem when they checked it out etc. Two months later I got a bank statement showing a withdrawal for rent for the month (on the modem I was not using). The gobshits (vovafone folks) had not cancelled the contract.
Phone customer services to see what the story was and they told my they would cancel contract and return money. Four months later nothing. Phoned again. Got back money for rental but not for the modem (49.99) as they said this was ‘vodafone retails’ job to do.
Went into shop to ask for money on the modem back. They calimed that I had already got the money back the day I handed the modem back which was not correct.
Robben ba&*%”)&! (as we say down here).
The team leader at the customer services end suggested to call the police!!
LESSON:
Make sure you get money back for modem when left back if you are not going to keep it.
I intend to attempt phoing again but I shoud think it will be a waste of time.

Regards,
DM

The SIMs from both work in my Nokia N95-8GB. O2 3G does not work where I live (bad signal) but Vodafone does. Both work in Bandon town centre. Truphone Voice Over IP and Fring Instant Messenger both work perfectly on both. Qik video streaming works well on O2 and poorly on Vodafone. A quick test of file download on both showed approx .30 Mbs instead of 3 Mbs but I need to run more tests on that.

Tomorrow I am going to test both on the train to/from Dublin. One in phone, the other in the modem and then reversed on the way back down.

Vodafone is €49 for modem/SIM and then €15 each month for 3 months. O2 is €89 for modem/SIM and same monthly pricing. Vodafone has 5GB cap per month, O2 is 10GB. O2 provides a slightly better modem which will support 7.2Mbs whenever that is rolled out. More as I find it.

Check out vodafone.ie – they are flogging off “as new” ones cheaply. I’d almost go with O2 myself just to stick it to Voda. Note there is no relationship between your mobile phone account and any “mobile broadband” account. I don’t know if that’s because they are still running their billing on a PDP-11 or they can’t get their head around data. In any case, it means you could get an O2 data SIM and put it in a Vodafone mobile if the mobile is unlocked. Generally you just have to ring Voda and ask for the phone to be unlocked. They didn’t ask me why I wanted to do it (I did it to use a MAXRoam SIM whilst abroad), they just pointed out that I still was in contract with them.

Until Vodafone starts offering proper data plans to people with HSDPA phones, you cannot use them as modems. I see no sign of them or O2 offering this. I don’t know whether it is due to the sort of bizarre business models that mobile telcos work under or good old fashioned incompetence.

The only option you have – and hilariously, O2 shops are telling people this – is to buy one of the sperm modems from Voda/O2/Three and put the SIM from it into your phone when you want to use it as a bluetooth modem. You’ll obviously lose SMS and have to pay the extra mothly data charge (but it’s less than €1000 per month!). I’m tempted to try it and see if Truphone or Fring+Blueface voice will work over the data connection. If it does, then forward your mobile number to your VOIP number and you’ll be sussed for calls too.

Customer service is a disaster. Average 45 minute wait time. Technical support only fully staffed 9:00-22:00 weekdays. Even the supervisors obviously didn’t understand the technical issues. Awaiting third callback from backend tech people in 3 days (first two never arrived). Lies and misinformation. Going to give them two more days to sort this out, then cancelling my contract (thankfully there’s a 14 day back out period) and try o2.

I’d say ditch Vodafone and get an N series Nokia on an 02 account. I’ve been with 02 for 17 years and they’re fine.

Then just get Fring for free – it works perfectly on SIP VOIP telephony, MSN Messenger and MSN Telephony, ICQ, and Skype – and O2′s 34MB data + 500 minute GSM deal only costs about £37.