Looking for a 30 day internet dongle package for Malawi - Airtel? Anyone know?

[MaDi]

Hi Chatters,

I'm looking for a way of being connected to the internet whilst on the
move in Malawi.

I've heard that Airtel do an internet dongle that sounds like good
value.

Does anyone know how this works or where I can get one from, also how
reliable is it, how much it costs?

Please e-mail any details or help to MaDi_Ent...@yahoo.co.uk.

Thanks

Mark

[Dean & Penny]

TNM & Airtel both have dongles and monthly packages.

The Airtel dongle goes for somewhere in the neighborhood of K8000, and
the TNM one goes for about double that. Airtel's 1GB monthly package
is K2560, and TNM keeps changing their rates but the last time I
looked their rates match Airtel's pretty closely.

We actually have both, because we had a terrible time with our Airtel
(Zain at the time) service, and bought a TNM dongle. Airtel's service
has improved significantly since then, and now both services are
comparable, and relatively fast. Sometimes they're as slow as
everything else, but sometimes you can easily watch streaming video. I
once downloaded a 60MB file in less than 10 minutes with the Airtel
dongle. And every now and then the connection is so slow that it times
out before I can load a webpage. In fact, yesterday afternoon my
Airtel dongle wasn't able to connect at all.

You should be able to get an internet connection anywhere that you can
use a cell phone, but I've only actually tried in & around Lilongwe
and Blantyre.

TNM has a shop near Kang'ombe house in City Centre and another one on
M1 across from Crossroads. Airtel has a building on the East side of
City Centre, near the library and the Mnamwino House, and another shop
on M1 between Paul Kagame and NICO Centre.

-Dean

> Please e-mail any details or help to MaDi_Enterpri...@yahoo.co.uk.
>
> Thanks
>
> Mark