O2 Mobile Broadband Pay Monthly

Independent review with up to date prices, details and special offers for this package...

Free O2 mobile broadband USB modem
1GB or 3GB data usage per month
First three months free
Free access to 7,500 Wi-Fi hotspots in the UK
Broadband-quality speeds up to 3.6Mbps
£2.50 rebate on O2 home broadband when you take an 18 month contract.
30 day money back guarantee

At a glance

Our Rating:

Monthly Price:	from £5
USB Modem Cost:	from Free
Contract Length:	from 1 month

Mobile Broadband:
Max Speed:	Up to 3.6Mb
Usage Limit:	Up to 3GB

See all options for this package

O2 mobile broadband review: Pay Monthly

IF you're an O2 mobile customer, you've probably suffered through their annoying 'on hold' music already but don't let that put you off their mobile broadband packages.

With newly reduced prices, a great reputation on customer service and a host of extras O2 mobile broadband is holding its own against the competition.

Usage Allowances

There's a choice of 1GB or 3GB deals with O2 mobile broadband. A 1GB per month download limit is enough to send about 1000 emails or spend around 10 hours browsing webpages but remember that downloading or streaming will send your usage sky-rocketing.

It's a real shame that O2 have nixed their more generous 10GB mobile broadband deals.

However, the good news is that going over the limit isn't too expensive. It'll cost 2.4p per Mb, a snip when you consider that O2 used to charge 20p per Mb.

However, heavy downloaders could still get better value for money elsewhere, for example with 3 15gb mobile broadband.

Luckily, O2 more than make up for this, and extend their friendly broadband hands by way of reparation with one of the only mobile broadband networks to offer access to Wi-Fi hotspots in addition to their 3G broadband coverage.

You can find over 7,500 of these Wi-Fi hotspots around the country, and what's even better is that these are unlimited access (subject to O2's fair use policy), and on top of that, the network will automatically connect to one of these if a faster Wi-Fi connection is available, which will preserve your 3GB user limit.

Contracts

Note that you'll get a discount on the 18 month contract - the first three months for free.

If you do choose a one month rolling contract note that you have to give 30 days notice of cancellation so if you only want it for a month you'll have to cancel when you sign up, which is an odd situation.

For more flexibility, take a look at O2 pay as you go mobile broadband where you just pay for the usage without a contract but you will have to pay £19.99 for a modem.

Speed

O2 has recently upgraded their networks, and now advertise speeds of up to 3.6Mb/sec. As with all broadband networks, mobile or otherwise, the chances of you actually achieving this speed on a regular basis are positively slim.

Depending on your proximity to the local network, you can realistically expect a little less than this, but unless you're a hardcore gamer, the speed will be adequate for your e-mail and web-surfing needs and not much different from your landline broadband.

You can read more about the modem in our O2 mobile broadband test.

Going Abroad

Whilst you can use O2's mobile broadband when you're overseas, it's probably not recommended. You'll be charged a whopping £3 per Mb of data, and £6 outside of the EU.

You can purchase a Data Abroad bolt-on for 50MB of usage, but this is an extra £50 a month. Our verdict? Use an internet cafe instead.

Text messages to O2 mobiles

While strangely only available on certain O2 mobile broadband plans, this 3GB 18-month deal is one that comes with 300 text messages to O2 mobile phones sent from your laptop each month.

If you have O2 pals, but don't have an unlimited text plan on your mobile - this offers a great way to message friends who don't get e-mail on their mobiles.

Rebate off O2 home broadband - with 18 month contract

At the moment, O2 is offering anyone taking the 18 month contract version of this package an additional £2.45 off O2's excellent home broadband deals. Considering their home broadband packages were already excellent deals, this makes them practically unmissable!

You can find out more about this when you sign up, or if you miss that, they'll send you details through the post once you're up and running with your O2 Mobile broadband.

This deal is only available if you're willing to tie yourself in to an 18-month contract but O2 do offer a 30 day happiness guarantee so there's not such a massive risk to take if you want to find out how good the signal is in your area is.

So, is O2 mobile broadband any good?

Overall, yes. O2 have one of the better mobile broadband packages available on the market, so if you're already an O2 customer, it's a great way to take your broadband mobile.