laptops wireless connection

Hi, I havent been on for a while, but now we are getting organized to leave in about 2 weeks & I have a question if some one can advise. We have just bought a laptop & Im not sure which is the best way to go with internet supply. I was thinking of either virgin or vodaphone as they seem to be offering better deals. I know virgin piggy back off optus, so coverage should be good { travelling up the east coast from victoria.} But I was told that vodaphone has a faster modem & they use optus & telsra towers when out of zone from their own. Has anyone had good or bad experiences with either. I have heard that virgin are bad to deal with if you have a technical problem. I guess you can see I am pretty new to this. Hope someone can advise.

Thanks Peter. That is what I am looking at for the east coast. Next year when we do the west coast I know I will have to go to telstra & hopefully there will be better deals for pre pay. I guess I am also a bit reluctant to go telstra as when we have dealt with them in years past with our land line we have always problems with them. Even now our home computer is with tpg [who are brilliant to deal with & cheap] but we have had major problems & its been telstra having hardware problems 3 times now since christmas. I am looking at coverage & I'm not finding overall coverage maps, except for voda phone, with the others i have to type in an address. So I am hoping to hear from anyone who has done the east coast with virgin vodaphone or even optus.

Not all Mcdonalds have wifi, I tried one on the Gold Coast at Eleanora at Easter and they do not have it.

We have the Telstra nextG "turbo" usb modem with the Toshiba laptop.

Hi, new here  but just noticed telstra has released prepaid wireless plans that last upto 6 months in response to their loss for business to the likes of optus and vodaphone who have good coverage on the east coast and in some instances large regional centers. If you feel unsure about signing up for a long contract try prepaid for a few months to see how much you use and then you can take a contract later. We have used vodaphone on a 12Gb prepaid for 12 months access and have been plesantly suprised at the level of coverage on the east coast whilst traveling for 3 months. Or go to whirlpool.net.au and look at the forum there as it is all people in the know.

you pay more but i would go with telstra next g. earlier this year we sent 6 weeks in tasmania travelling each day so we covered a lot of territory and had internet coverage 99% of the time. our mobile phones are with optus and only  worked in major towns that is hobart & launceston so we used skype . also have had trouble with optus on the inland highway in queensland from biloela woandon and south.

Unfortunately if you are seriously going to travel around Oz there is only one choice, Telstra/Bigpond on the Next G network. We run this site from our van full time on the road and could be anywhere. Usually can get connected eg. we are currently at King Ash Bay near Borroloola NT about as remote as one can get. Have got the big stick up but here I am writing this post.

We couldn't do it with any other network.

Merv

He means that he has got his BIG aerial up ... right up on top of his TV antenna.

Hi

Hi Deb, take it from someone has tried the cheap option, the quality of the telstra service will remain long after the price is forgotton, nothing will come close to teltra service while travelling around. I have been camping at many remote locations like boorooloola and kakadu just to name two and nothing else will work, for me the internet is very important to stay in touch with family and business needs. Good luck. Pete