Looking for something with decent speed and download limits and fairly short contract to bide me over while we move house and get everything sorted out. What is there that is good?

Nobody?

Voda are about the best speed wise but don't know abut contracts.

IME if you use a Vodafone dongle, you won't be able to use another mobile network provider unless you do a clean install of Windows. It's an acknowledged poor programming issue.

Orange do 10GB limit on a monthly contract for £25.00. The dongle costs £30.00. If you buy direct from Orange, you get a 7 day cooling off period.

T-Mobile do monthly contracts with 3GB limits and don't charge you for going over, but have a strictish "fair use" policy.

All providers have a postcode checker, use it to see what sort of strength signal that can reasonably expect to get.

Stay away from the 3 dongles. Rubbish. Couldn't even get it to connect in central London ffs. Tried t-mobile and Vodafone both were fine but the Vodafone came out top. Could get pretty fast speeds even in rural areas. Mines on pay as you go and although its not the cheapest your credit doesnt seem to be on a time limit like some of the others. Great if you use it sporadically like me.

ps ive had vodafone, tmobile and 3 installed on my laptop with no issues, using vista.

I'm guessing that there will be no problems using it with a Mac?

i use 3 as we speak a little on the slow side but it's a pay as you go £10 for 1 gb 30 day limit but no contract just top up when feel like it.

I have vodaphone dongle. pretty good coverage thus far. esp on 3G. I have just started using my phone as a modem instead as the antennae on the dongles are not that good at picking up signal where it is quite weak.

I'd avoid 3 network, it was pretty much unusable for me.

Avoid the 3 network. Postcode check said i would get very good signal. In reality it was worse than useless. Customer services are in Mumbai and a nothing short of a nightmare and Technical support centre advice was "try sitting by an open window". Dire beyond belief.

I have no issues at all with 3 it's lightning fast for me and i like the top up structure too, i guess its all down to location.

location is the issue with 3 when i got it the postcode check said excellent reception but it was crap, however the signal strength has now been improved and it works reasonably well, if you're near one of their masts it'll probably be ok.