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Fair usage mobile broadband

Our Broadband Expert says...

While ditching your landline and just using a mobile broadband connection can save you around £135 a year on line rental alone, you do have to take into account the fact that broadband speeds are slower than fixed line connections, and, as you’ve found out, download allowances are also much lower.

Because of this, mobile broadband isn’t yet a viable alternative to a home broadband connection for most people.

Fair usage policies

T-Mobile Mobile Broadband (www.T-Mobile.co.uk) is the only broadband provider to offer a fair usage policy on its mobile broadband packages. This means that, unlike with other internet service providers (ISPs), you won’t automatically be charged if you go over your limit.

However, you could have your connection restricted, so that you can only surf the net, or just use bandwidth-hungry programmes during off-peak hours.

If you regularly exceed your limit, you might also be asked to upgrade to a more appropriate package with a higher download allowance - though this will cost you more each month.

Your download allowance

T-Mobile’s pay monthly deals come with either a 3GB or a 5GB monthly download allowance and 1GB of data is 1,024MB.

An hour’s web surfing - without any downloads or internet TV streaming – uses up an average of 20MB, while 100 emails without attachments uses an average of just 1MB. If you add attachments such as documents or pictures, this will go up.

3GB a month should allow you to:

• Send 3,000 Outlook/HTML Emails
• Surf the internet for 30 hours
• Download 15 four minute videos
• Download 96 four minute music tracks

5GB a month should allow you to:

• Send 5,000 Outlook/HTML Emails
• Surf the internet for 50 hours
• Download 25 four minute videos
• Download 160 four minute music tracks

Downloading data

Any online activities count towards your download allowance - even loading a webpage uses up a small amount of data.

Although everyday activities such as web browsing and basic emails don’t use up a huge amount of your download allowance, if you spend hours online each day, it will soon add up.

Even if you don’t download music or movies, listening to music online using services like Spotify or YouTube, or watching TV programmes using the BBC iPlayer uses a huge amount of data if you're a mobile broadband customer, so you have to be extra careful if you do this.

Uploading files

Although we often talk about data in terms of download limits, uploading files also counts towards your data allowance. This means that if you use websites like Facebook to upload pictures and videos, you will have to take this into account too.

Instant messenger

Instant messenger services such as MSN and Google Chat are great for keeping in touch, but do also contribute to your data limit - and if you spend a lot of time talking using these services it will soon eat into your allowance.

An hour’s conversation over instant messenger uses an average of 1MB, which isn’t a lot.

If you have a 3GB download allowance you’ll have enough data for a massive 3,072 hours of instant messenger chats, or 5,120 hours if you're on the 5GB plan, if you don’t use your connection for anything else.

Internet telephone calls

Most mobile broadband providers don’t allow you to use VoIP internet telephony services like Skype, but if you're on T-Mobile’s Mobile Broadband Extra plan, you can do this. However, you should be extra careful using applications like this as they use up even more data.

Tracking your downloads

The best way to avoid having your connection throttled is to keep track of your downloading and make sure that you don’t go over your limit. You should be able to do this by logging into your T-Mobile account, or you can install our free Broadband Download Monitor to track your downloads and even set an alarm to alert you as you reach your limit.

Free overnight downloads

Although you're frustrated at having your connection reduced, it is better than having to pay a huge amount for the excess data you’ve used. All other mobile broadband providers charge an out of bundle fee once you’ve used up your allowance, which ranges from 1.96p per MB with Orange Mobile Broadband (www.Orange.co.uk) to a massive 19.6p per MB with O2 Mobile Broadband (www.O2.co.uk).

However, some providers, such as Orange and Vodafone Mobile Broadband (www.Vodafone.co.uk) allow you to top up your allowance by buying cheaper data add-ons.

Orange offers the cheapest monthly data add-ons, starting at just £5 for 1GB, compared to £15 per GB with most other providers, and also offers a unique range of packages with free overnight downloads, allowing you to do your downloading between midnight and 9am and keep your precious data allowance for daylight hours.

NB Best buy tables (orange background) are always current.

Examples in the text of the article (white background) are correct at time of publication.

Ask us a question

If you have a general switching or provider query please email us at OurExpert@broadbandchoices.co.uk

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