JoeJoe wrote:
I bought a USB dongle in Australia during the summer to be able to access
the web using my laptop whilst there. It was bought there from the
Australian arm of VirginMobile, and worked great.

I now need to be able to have a similar arrangement both here in the UK and
also in Portugal. Not looking for anything fancy - just, say, 1GB/month for
the occasional use and at a reasonable cost.

Does anybody know if my dongle will work here/in Portugal with a locally
purchased PAYG SIM card, or do I have to buy a new one (or two)?

It basically depends whether the dongle is unlocked or not. You can
buy unlocked USB dongles for £20 or so and then you can use a SIM from
any network in it (as long as it's an internet sort of SIM of course).

This is what we do for internet access in Belgium, I have an unlocked
dongle and we buy PAYG Mobistar SIMs.

--
Chris Green