Life seems to be getting ever more expensive, and with the after effects of the credit crunch kicking in, most people are finding their disposable income dwindling. If you are having to take a hard look at your monthly outgoings, then maybe your internet access is an area where you could save some cash. If you are paying for an expensive home broadband package, then you could consider replacing this with a cheap mobile broadband option. Mobile broadband has had widespread uptake over the last few years, but the services available still vary greatly in performance across the country.
The biggest factor governing whether you can use mobile broadband for your main internet connection is how good the performance will be where you want to use it the most. If that’s at home, then your chances are much better if you live in an urban area where you will find 3G masts, as opposed to in rural countryside, where much of the time mobile broadband is still impractical GPRS. For cheapness, you really want to be looking at Pay As You Go mobile broadband as opposed to a contract.
Pay As You Go will work out especially cheap if you don’t need daily access to the internet. If you think you have a reasonable chance of getting 3G, then next thing you have to consider is which network to go for. You can take a look at some speed test results at BestMobileBroadband.co.uk, but the best network will depend on the local mobile signal availability where you live. If you ask your friends about their mobile phone signal strengths, you might get an indication of expected mobile broadband quality. If that’s not possible, then you’ll be relieved to hear that PAYG dongles are only around £20, so if the first network you try is no good, it won’t break the bank to try another.
We would suggest 3 Mobile, Vodafone or T-Mobile as worth a try first. Under optimum conditions, all of these networks offer fast mobile broadband, but as ever, performance does vary with location, and heavily populated areas can often be a particular problem as the network can get overloaded at peak times. Hopefully, with continued investment in the mobile broadband networks this will gradually become less of a problem. 3 Mobile is well known for cheap mobile broadband, offering some of the best data usage rates, and would be our first choice. However, bear in mind 3 Mobile currently only offers a 30 day TopUp, whereas T-Mobile offers a daily rate at £2 per day (although last time we tried, a minimum TopUp amount of £5 still applies, so you can’t buy a single day).
You have to strike a balance between best overall data rate and whether you’ll be using it for just some of the month (daily or weekly plans better) or the whole month.
So, there we go, cheap mobile broadband might save you a few pounds per month if you’re lucky enough to live in a good signal area. Of course the other main benefit of mobile broadband is that you can then take your laptop out and about with you. Mobile broadband still does not give the slick experience of the fastest home broadband, but you might be able to check your e-mail or catch up on some work on your travels, and a lot of the time it’s good enough for listening to online radio and YouTube video streaming, so it should help you to chill out a bit too.
Chris High is a content writer for BestMobileBroadband.co.uk.
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