Hi – due to on-going unemployment I am thinking of dropping my TV/Phone/Broadband package. The £32 a month can be a lot more useful elsewhere. I never use my landline and even though the new series of Fringe and SGU are just about to start I’m a big boy and can learn to live without them. My only concern is broadband. I can obviously use hotspots and go to my local library for access. However being out of work internet is really useful. What do people think about mobile broadband. Obviously signal strength will come in to it. Anyone got any experiences they can share? If I go for a pay as you go deal will I end up spending just as much and or get frustrated with speed.

I down/up load very little. Some photos for eBay etc sales and attaching CV to emails/ downloading job applications so not a lot of big memory stuff.

Any tips/experiences would be greatly appreciatted.

Cheers

payg is slow but ok for generic non downloading browsing if yu can live with slow speeds. If you can get a mobile signal you will be ok on any of them. Think contracts are marginally cheaper. 02 were doing £15 PAYG for 3GB but have just reduced that to 2 GB

If I were you, I’d look for a cheap phone/broadband package instead and drop the telly subscription.

You’ll need the line/line rental for broadband anyway and you can get some pretty decent deals now. I’d be looking to halve the existing monthly costs which will probably be a more sensible option than a mobile broadband dongle.

Im on T-mobile mobile broadband PAYG, it’s £15 a month, and where I live it is much faster than I would have ever expected.

Three were pitching their offering at home users. You get a Wifi router with a dongle plugged into it.

If you have a decent phone on 3g now buy an unlimited internet bolt on with your contact and thether it.

I’ve used O2 and 3 mobile broadband in central Manchester and both have been fine for browsing and very minor uploads/downloads (just resize your photos before upload etc).

O2 was £15 PayG
3 is only about £7mth

Cheers fellas – I would go for Talk Talk BB/Phone which is about £18/month BUT they want £50 for installation. Though I suppose I could ditch the Virgin and save 2 months payment for the installation.

If I can get 3 BB for less than £10 a month I think I will give that a go.

Cheers for input guys.

I think Virgin do broadband only without having to have a phone line. Otherwise, I’m very happy with 3mobile and also means no hassle when I move soon.

Ive been using Orange’s service for nearly a year now and found it to be pretty good, altho its never goin to be as fast as a wired connection but i can still stream video and download files etc ok! I live out in the hills of Calderdale and have found the coverage ok out here! I did opt for the high gain dongle tho, but i dont know if that really makes much difference.

altho its never goin to be as fast as a wired connection

Not true. My BB dongle with good signal is theoretically something like 11Mb/s with good signal in a 3.5g area, whereas I only get about 1.5Mb/s at home. Not sure how close to that I get but when I have good signal it’s definitely a load faster than home.