Hot-Spot or Mobile Broadband

3 have announced that they will double their broadband speeds by the end of the summer.  They currently operate at a theoretical max download speed of 3.6Mb, although they only quote 2.8Mb as a top speed as 3.6Mb is virtually impossible to achieve unless you sit live under a base station.  Most people will receive 1Mb to 1.5Mb on average, which allows you to download a music track in no more than 30 seconds, so it’s still pretty fast.  Most home broadband connection’s only achieve a speed of around 3Mb according to a report late last year by the BBC.

Their network top speed is increasing to 7.2Mb which 3 state will get most customers to an actual download speed of 2Mb.  They aim t double the top speed again to 14.4Mb in the future, which we assume means a download speed of 3Mb to 4Mb which would challenge many of the home broadband providers.

Find out more about 3’s Mobile Broadband deals

GadgetStylist.com has revealed the details of the 3 Mobile Broadband with free laptop deal that is now available. There are 3 free laptops on offer, each with different features levels.

You can get a free laptop from £30 per month on a 24 month contract, up to £40 per month for the highest spec laptop.

Go to GadgetStylist.com’s mobile broadband and phone reviews website for more information

…and 1 million in total across Europe.This suggests that 3’s strong marketing campaign and courage to pretty much create a new market in the UK has paid off.  I would estimate that with 500k subscribers they probably hold about 25-35% of the UK’s consumer Mobile Broadband market, out punching their weight in the mobile phone market where they only have around 6 or 7% of customers.

Great to see 3 getting some reward for their efforts and really interesting to get some numbers on the Mobile Broadband market.