Hot-Spot or Mobile Broadband

O2 have become the first Broadband provider to sell Home and Mobile Broadband together in one package.  For £20 you get their 3GB Mobile Broadband package, including unlimited Wi-fi hotspot access with The Cloud, and they give you their entry level home broadband package free for one year. That saves you £7.50 per month.

It seems like a good deal if you live in an O2 Broadband area but want to get Mobile Broadband too.  I’ve actually got O2 Home Broadband and it’s super-fast, running up to 19Mbps at my old house on the top package.  Worth a butcher’s.

3 are widely reported to be rolling out a new range of deals this August which will combine a free laptop with a £30 to £40 per month Mobile Broadband tariff. The contract will last 24 months and include 5GB of downloads per month.

This could be the ultimate student package, or a great way to purchase a second PC for your home whilst getting the benefit of mobile broadband whenever you need, with a generous download limit.

This is similar to Carphone Warehouse’s free laptop offers when you sign up to AOL for your home broadband, a deal which has proved very popular. Keep em peeled for the launch of the deals in a few days time on 3’s website.

GadgetStylist.com has just published a Beginner’s Guide to Mobile Broadband. There’s loads of useful info about what Mobile Broadband is, how it works and some suggestions about finding the best deal for your needs. Have a look and let us know what you think about it by adding a comment here!

I’ve reviewed Mobile Broadband modems from 3 of the big operators on GadgetStylist.com. Just click the links below to check them out…

O2 Mobile Broadband modem

Orange Mobile Broadband modem

3 Mobile Broadband modem

One of the minor parts of O2’s iPhone 3G announcement was the expansion of the access to wi-fi hotspots from 7,500 to 9,500 hotspots. This is achieved by adding access to BT’s Openzones on top if access to The Cloud (who incidentally are the providers of a large chunk of BT’s wifi network. Great news for iPhone users, new and old.

Should we expect the same benefit being offered to O2’s Mobile Broadband users? It would surely make sense…

…you heard it here first.