Yes, I have similar experiences with Vodafone. I signed up for a 2 year deal at £15 per month but, when I started, I ordered over the interenet so that, if coverage wasn't up to scratch, I could cancel under the distance selling regulations. But I've been quite pleased overall. A while ago their servers couldn't manage to send more than about one email in five which was very annoying but I swapped a few messages with their customer support people and the issue seems to be resolved now.

It is frustrating when there's a bad connection but it's not all that bad if you are old enough to remember when 56k modems were hot property. I have found that having the dongle on a cable and moving it around can sometimes improve the connection.

Vodafone mobile broadband

I bought a £35 payg stick with £15 top up on it for £25 inc £10 cashback a couple of days ago. It’s a brilliant standby at home if, as happened to me on cue, home broadband packs up. I can do the essentials “surfing” in about 15 minutes which amounts to about 25p. Outside the home it’s just as convenient.

However the signal varies wildly from “very poor” to “very good” in the same location at similar times and having a Vodafone mobi one myth I was able to dispel is that the two signals bare any relationship to each other – they don’t. Outside I experimented in different areas including my local shopping centre and a café in particular and it’s just the luck of the draw. A friend reported a similar pattern with T-Mobile.

Even with its limitations I’m really pleased with it.