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Short term mobile broadband contracts

Our Broadband Expert says...

Dear Ryszard, these days you don’t necessarily have to sign a 12, 18 or 24 month mobile broadband contract to get a good deal.

Six month contracts

Vodafone Broadband (www.Vodafone.co.uk) has just launched the UK’s first six month mobile broadband contract, offering a 3GB monthly download allowance for £15 a month. Although this is pretty average in terms of mobile broadband allowance and headline rate, it actually offers three times more value than Vodafone’s pay as you go mobile broadband, which costs £15 for just 1GB.

You will also have to pay a one-off fee of £29 for your mobile broadband dongle, though it is enabled for speeds of up to 7.2Mb and has a slot for a 4GB memory card so that it can also be used as a USB key.

Rolling one-month contracts

A number of mobile broadband providers also offer rolling one-month contracts, allowing you to cancel whenever you want, but without the hassle of having to top up when your data runs out.

3 Broadband (www.Three.co.uk) currently offers only one rolling monthly contract. It offers better value than most, with a 5GB monthly download allowance for just £15 a month - 2GB more than most other one month contracts for the same price. And at the moment, you only have to pay a one-off fee of £9.99 for your mobile broadband USB modem stick - by far the cheapest on the market.

O2 Mobile Broadband (www.O2.co.uk) offers two rolling contracts, one with a 3GB monthly download allowance for £14.69 a month, the other with a 10GB allowance for £29.38 a month. Both come with unlimited wireless hotspot minutes from The Cloud and BT Broadband's (www.BT.com) Openzone network. However, you do have to pay £58.71 for your dongle.

Orange Mobile Broadband (www.Orange.co.uk) also offers two similar 30-day contracts. The 3GB option costs £14.68 a month, while the 10GB plan costs just £24.47 a month. Again though, you will have to pay £29 for your dongle.

Download allowances

Although rolling one month contracts and Vodafone’s six month contract definitely do offer better value than pay as you go options - without the commitment of a long contract - you still have to be careful not to exceed your download allowance.

The charges applied by your mobile broadband provider when you exceed your monthly limit can vary from a set £15 charge for an extra GB of data from Vodafone, or 19.6p per additional MB from O2 - meaning that costs can soon add up if you're not careful.

Use our free Broadband Download Monitor to keep track of your downloads and make sure that you never exceed your limit. And if you want to use your mobile broadband connection as a replacement for your fixed-line connection, remember that watching programmes on the BBC iPlayer, listening to music on online radio station Spotify and uploading pictures to your Facebook profile will all soon add up, cutting short your download allowance.

Mobile broadband speeds

Although mobile broadband providers regularly advertise their speeds as “up to 3.6Mb” or even “up to 7.2Mb”, recent research has shown that average speeds are actually just under 1Mb.

Just like a fixed-line connection, various factors - such as where you live and the number of other users on the network - can affect the speeds you receive. Make sure you compare mobile broadband providers to see who can offer the best coverage in your area - and areas that you regularly travel to.

Mobile broadband coverage

Because mobile broadband uses the mobile phone network to deliver your connection, around 90 per cent of the UK can currently get a mobile broadband signal, and the Government has even touted mobile broadband as a possible solution to broadband “not-spots”.

However, mobile broadband coverage varies across the country and you should always check what kind of speeds you should expect before signing up to any one provider.

NB Best buy tables are always current.

Examples in the text of the article are correct at time of publication.

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