Remember when I was so excited about having bought a pay-as-you-go dongle from Orange so I could stay connected during my week-long holiday in Málaga last month? And remember how I commented about how temperamental it was and that I could only connect now and then? Well, the damn thing turned out to be totally useless when I went to Zahara…

As soon as I arrived there and had got my stuff organised at Agustín’s fabulous apartment, I went out on the terrace and set up my dongle. And nothing. And then … got a connection for about two minutes, then nothing again. So I got on the phone to Orange’s customer service dept (which takes at least 10 minutes of automated menu shit before you get to speak to a real person) and was informed that there was no 3G coverage in Zahara. I then said that I was calling from my iPhone which had a very strong 3G connection showing on the screen. So – duh! – turned out it was Orange that didn’t have any coverage in Zahara, not that it didn’t exist. And then I remembered Agustín telling me that his friend Guillermo (who has a place next door to Agustín in Zahara) had complained that his Vodafone dongle also didn’t work at the beach, and said he started using his iPhone as a modem.

Now, before buying the Orange dongle, I had asked at Telefónica if I could use my iPhone as a modem and was told that only the new 3G S model had this capability. But it turns out that if you have the newest iPhone software (which I do) then the tethering option is available.  And so I tried it out … and hot damn if it didn’t work straight away and also way faster than the dongle had been.

To be on the safe side I also called the Telefónica customer service line, was put straight through to a human and was told that, as I pay a flat rate for internet on my iPhone, I wouldn’t be charged anything extra for using the iPhone as a modem. I made her repeat this to me – and then I repeated it back to her – but it seems that this is really the case. To be extra sure I checked my bank account with bated breath yesterday to see what the iPhone payment had been for August … and it was totally normal. So – yay!

Yet another reason to love my iPhone.  🙂