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Student mobile broadband
Broadband is a basic necessity for students, but once you add line rental, costs can soon add up. Mobile broadband is the perfect way to reduce your broadband bills.
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Try a one-month contract or pay as you go
If you want the flexibility of a pay as you go mobile broadband package but want a better value deal, then a one-month mobile broadband contract might be the answer for you. You’ll still be able to top up with extra data if you need to and could get more data for your money. 3 Broadband (www.Three.co.uk), Orange Mobile Broadband (www.Orange.co.uk) and O2 Mobile Broadband (www.O2.co.uk) all offer rolling one-month contracts.
| Supplier | Package details | Speed (up to) | 1st year cost | Monthly charge | Download limit | Go |
| 5GB (1 month) | 7Mb | £189.99 | £15.00 | 5GB | ||
| Pay and Go | 4Mb | Pay as you go | Pay as you go | 3GB |
However, if you’re worried about going over your limit, a pay as you go connection might be best. Once you reach your limit you’ll have to top up again before you can get online - so while you won’t ever be charged for exceeding your limit, you won’t be able to access the net until you can afford to top up again.
Orange’s Early Bird tariffs - which come with 12 month contracts - offer free overnight downloads and are perfect for students. You can set your laptop to download everything you need overnight when its free and keep your precious data allowance for daytime surfing.
| Supplier | Package details | Speed (up to) | 1st year cost | Monthly charge | Download limit | Go |
| Mobile broadband 1GB (12 months) | 7Mb | £159.99 | £13.00 | 1GB | ||
| 3GB (12 months) | 7Mb | £219.99 | £18.00 | 3GB | ||
| Mobile broadband 10GB (12 months) | 7Mb | £339.99 | £28.00 | 10GB |
Download limits and extra costs
You need to make absolutely sure that you don’t exceed your download allowance. Data allowances range from 500MB with Orange’s cheapest monthly contract, to 15GB from 3, but most providers offer 3GB or 5GB packages.
Fees for exceeding your allowance can be very high. For example, O2 charges 19.6p per MB and 3 charges 10p per MB. Other suppliers like Virgin Media Mobile Broadband (www.Virginmedia.com) and Vodafone Broadband (www.Vodafone.co.uk) charge £15 per GB.
Orange offers the cheapest data bundles, starting at just £5 for 1GB and going up to £20 for an extra 10GB a month. It also offers a range of Early Bird tariffs that allow you to download as much as you want between midnight and 9am without affecting your download allowance.
T-Mobile Broadband (www.T-Mobile.co.uk) is the only provider to offer a fair usage policy on its mobile broadband contracts. However, you will still face some sort of penalty if you exceed your limit. T-Mobile could restrict how you can use your connection or you could be asked to upgrade to a more generous package.
This all means that you have to be extra careful with your download allowance - you can’t download the Eastenders omnibus every Sunday along with all of last season’s Skins.
Mobile broadband coverage
A mobile broadband connection not only allows you to save money - as long as you don’t exceed your allowance - it also lets you take your broadband connection with you to the library, coffee shop or halls of residence.
Just make sure that you check the mobile broadband coverage of your chosen provider before signing up. You can check more than one postcode to make sure that you’ll get a good signal wherever you need it.
Cutting costs even further
If you just use a mobile broadband connection - and stay within your monthly download allowance - you can save around £135 by ditching your landline. Many people keep their landline just for their copper wire ADSL broadband, but if you make your calls using your mobile phone and just stick to a mobile broadband connection you can get rid of it altogether.
Use our free Broadband Download Monitor to see how much you typically download in a month and choose a mobile broadband package to match your downloads.
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Click here to view a list of Mobile Broadband UK packages
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