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Now, here's a thing.
You just plug it in. The OS mounts the modem as a virtual CD-ROM drive, and you just double-click the DMG installer contained within and away you go!
Your challenge now is to buy some credit and activate your broadband.
Oh dear...
It turns out that to buy credit online, you need to register on the 'my3' site. When you register, you send your mobile number along with the last six digits of the SIM. All fine and dandy, APART from the fact that they send your initial password via SMS.
The OSX drivers, whilst they work fine for the business-end of the device, it turns out that they do not read SMSs sent to it.
Now at this point, you think, "Sod it, there's this live technical support webchat thing here on the website, let's see what they tell me".
This will in turn lead to them telling you to call the support helpline, which will in turn give you another number to call, which will in turn lead you to finally speak to someone who will in turn put you through to somebody else who will in turn tell you to put your SIM card into an unlocked phone, or configure the modem under Windows.
So, password retrieved, you can finally log into your my3 account and buy some credit.
...or CAN you?
You have to register your card details. Fine. No problemo, normal. What ISN'T normal is that after you've finished registering...
Here is an aside: make sure you unplug the modem from Windows before registering your card as XP gets confused as to which network to use. Whilst you can browse 3's site for free, the card payment process makes use of the 'Verified by Visa/SecureCard' 3D verification mechanism which takes the form of a suspicious window asking you for other card details. Yeah, somebody thought this was a great idea. Anyway. As part of this 3D process, your browser is redirected to the acquirer's website, which of course will be blocked if you're using the 3 modem as you've not got any credit to activate your connection yet...
Your jaw may drop in slack-jawed amazement at this point when you consider how far the stupidity has reached in the process with no sign of abatement.
So where were we? Oh yes. You look to see where the ten pounds of credit is that you didn't notice you were going to be authorising for registering the card. You might have wanted more, but of course, surely you'll be able to top up with a bit more later?
Hmm. Not there. Poke around my3 for a bit, trying to get to the bottom of things and in the process notice that card registration takes 7 days to complete. SEVEN DAYS. You also notice that the minimum transaction size is £10.
Finally, the credit appears in your account. Yay.
Onto the activation process! Wha..?
This is the easy part. In order to make use of your credit (which does not expire) and your "bundles" which do (after thirty days), you have to activate the bundles you desire.
So trawling through a big long list of SMS packages, Voice packages, and so on you get to the broadband options that are actually relevant to the product you've just set in your profile.
Sighing, you buy the 1Gb data transfer package for £10, even though you wanted the 3Gb one for £15. Can't really do much else with it as you can't put another fiver on it until your card has finished 'registering' next week and even then the minimum transaction is £10, so you'd need to put £20 on so it'd split into two £15 bundles and are you really going to use it that much anyway, isn't this why you wanted PAYG in the first place, la-di-da-di-dum.
You test the 3G connection. Victory! It works!
You speed test the connection. Woo! 200kb/sec downloads! Truly this is magic.
You make note to self: Next time, just go to Tescos/newsagents and buy a sodding voucher there.