Hot-Spot or Mobile Broadband

Mobile Broadband Pros

1. You can use mobile broadband anywhere that has 3G coverage. Mobile broadband coverage is expanding all the time with around 90% of the UK’s population living in an area with access to 3G coverage.
2. Mobile broadband is perfect if you want truly mobile access rather than being tied to a fixed location like at home or a wi-fi hotspot.
3. Mobile Broadband is fast - you can get download speeds of 1.8Mbps to as high as 7.2Mbps depending on your network and the quality of coverage. The average home broadband connection speed is around 3Mbps.
4. Mobile Broadband is now as cheap as £10 per month or £2 per day on Pay as you go.
5. Mobile broadband is now very easy to set-up on your laptop.  Most usb modems asre now Plug and Play (just plug the modem into your laptop and it automatically installs itself) and most of them are Mac compatible too.
6. If you live in a good coverage area you could replace your home broadband service with mobile broadband to save money or if you tend to move home often.
7. There are now lots of mobile broadband ‘free’ laptop deals where you get a laptop included in your mobile broadband contract for no upfront fee.  The cost of the laptop is built in your monthly payments.
8. Pay as you go mobile broadband deals offer you the chance to only pay for mobile broadband access when you need, at a much lower price than WiFi Hotspots.

Mobile Broadband Cons

1. Pay monthly mobile broadband contracts are normally 18 to 24 months long so you have to be prepared to commit - unless you choose Pay as you go mobile broadband.
2. The 3G signals that mobile broadband rely on don’t often travel well through walls, so you may get poor reception inside a particular building even if the surrounding area has good 3G reception.
3. Some mobile broadband usb modems are not compatible with Apple Macs.
4. Mobile broadband download speeds and download limits are, on average, lower than those for home broadband meaning mobile broadband is not recommended for watching longer videos, or for regularly downloading large files because you could get a hefty bill at the end of the month.  Going over your download limit can incur charges as high as 20p per MB.

Mobile Broadband is available with the following retailers.  To go to their websites just click on the logo:

Go to O2’s website

Go to T-Mobile’s website

Go to 3’s website

Go to Orange’s website

Go to Vodafone’s website

Go to Virgin Mobile’s website

Read our WiFi Hotspot Pros and Cons

Can you think of any more Pros and Cons for Mobile Broadband?  Just add your suggestions as a comment and we’ll add it to the list.