My dad is in hospital, minimum a month but could well be two or three. We are thankful that he is now well enough to be bored as he was looking pretty dodgy last weekend.

Hospital is happy enough for mobile use in his ward, but doesn’t have wifi for patients, fair enough. Since he’s already a Sky subscriber we’re thinking of getting a 3g usb dongle and sticking it in a netbook for him to watch the Sky programmes he’s already paying for.

Anyone know how much data this will eat an hour, and whether the streaming quality is likely to be worth it?

A quick scan suggests 15GB/month is the biggest contract around, and we have to sign up for 24months to get that. If anyone can point me at a more appropriate deal that’d be handy too.

Cheers in advance.

Sky go uses ALOT of bandwidth when we first starting using it my son watching the kids channel no more than 1 hour per used 11 gb in 2 weeks ok we were using the Internet also but not streaming so I think a 3G dongle may not be what your looking for. Possibly look at a 30 day rolling contract on 3 for their one plan £25 pm but you get all you can eat data however you will need a phone which creates its own wifi hotspot for the net book to link to. Never had any problems doing this but has to be the one plan. Hope this helps and hope your Dad recovers soon

I think GiffGaff unlimited data is actually unlimited, someone at work reckons he used 24gb in a month on his £12 sim deal…

With giff gaff you will need to check if they allow tethering as part of the £12 or if you have to pay more for it as other networks do. The one plan on 3 allows tethering and I have used this for 4 yeas now and have no complaints

On a 3G connection SkyGo will use up to 800 meg/hour depending on connection speed (it runs on a variable bit rate)

If you stick the giff-gaff SIM in an iPad, there’s no tethering required.

three does a 10GB one month rolling contract for £15 a month which can be capped,however you will a dongle for it.
If you want truly unlimited, then go for a one plan sim only (phone sim only so youll need a smartphone with tethering capability). It has all you can data with unlimited tethering and ultrafast services (up to 12.7 mb/s if your pphone is 4g ready. one month rolling option is £18 per month or £15 for a 12 month contract

The £15 unlimited data phone tether option is also available on PAYG on three. The Sims are free, too.

you wont be able to tether on payg on three

Look at orange/ee, they do swappables which don’t come out of data one is sky go. I know this is only an option on android though, not iPhone so possibly it also can’t be done via tethering. Worth asking though?

you wont be able to tether on payg on three

you can turn the phone into a wireless hotspot though, then pick up the wireless on the tablet/laptop.

you can turn the phone into a wireless hotspot though, then pick up the wireless on the tablet/laptop.

three will block it as tethering is not included on payg, you can only get it on the one plan