Mobile Broadband Dongle Deals

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			Pay now	Monthly price	Contract	Speed (Up to)	Downloads	Extras
Sponsored link		215 reviews	Unlimited browsing (3GB fair usage but no extra charges) just £10/mth for the first three months (then £15) on an 18-month contract. Comes with T-Mobile's Night In offer: movie/game rental + snacks for £5						Go to site Check coverage>
1	Dongle info»	384 reviews	FREE	£12 £3 per month off for the whole contract use voucher code 3MBB3OFF	18 months	7.2Mb	5 GBper month	Free delivery plus 14-day money-back guarantee.	Go to site Check coverage>
2	Dongle info»	181 reviews	FREE	£15	1 month	7.2Mb	3 GBper month	Flexible Starter plan with no long-term commitment	Go to site Check coverage>
3	Dongle info»	384 reviews	FREE	£15	24 months	7.2Mb	15 GBper month	Free delivery plus 14-day money-back guarantee.	Go to site Check coverage>
4	Dongle info»	384 reviews	FREE	£7.50 Was £10	18 months	7.2Mb	1 GBper month	Free delivery plus 14-day money-back guarantee.	Go to site Check coverage>
5	Dongle info»	384 reviews	FREE	£23	24 months	3.6Mb	15 GBper month	iPod Touch (8GB) . MiFi router connects several devices (such as iPad, laptop, Nintendo DSi) at once wirelessly. 80 free text messages/mth. Free delivery plus 14-day money-back guarantee.	Go to site Check coverage>
6	Dongle info»	384 reviews	£4.99	£15	1 month	7.2Mb	5 GBper month	Free delivery plus 14-day money-back guarantee.	Go to site Check coverage>
7	Dongle info»	384 reviews	FREE	£17	18 months	3.6Mb	5 GBper month	New one-touch MiFi router connects several devices (such as iPad, laptop, Nintendo DSi) at once wirelessly. 20 text messages/mth. Free delivery plus 14-day money-back guarantee.	Go to site Check coverage>
8	Dongle info»	384 reviews	FREE	£20	18 months	7.2Mb	15 GBper month	Free delivery plus 14-day money-back guarantee.	Go to site Check coverage>
9	Dongle info»	83 reviews	FREE	£10	1 month	3.6Mb	1 GBper month	Flexible 1-month contract. Choice of black or white USB dongle. Unlimited Wi-Fi access.	Go to site Check coverage>
10	Dongle info»	384 reviews	£39.99	£15	1 month	3.6Mb	5 GBper month	New one-touch MiFi router connects several devices (such as iPad, laptop, Nintendo DSi) at once wirelessly. 20 text messages/mth. Free delivery plus 14-day money-back guarantee.	Go to site Check coverage>

Mobile broadband dongles

There's a wealth of different options open to you when it comes to dongles for laptops. These are the small plastic devices that you'll see listed by the dozen throughout the comparison tables on our site. Mobile Internet allows you to stay online just about anywhere, but without a dongle you'll be going nowhere fast.

A dongle acts as a sort of bridge between the mobile broadband supply, which comes via the airwaves in the same way as a mobile phone signal, and the device you’re using to access online activities, which is usually a laptop or netbook computer. Dongles for laptop Internet will invariably fit any make and model, just as long as you have the right USB socket built-in to the machine, which unless you have an antiquated machine shouldn't be an issue.

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Dongles for laptops

Getting started with a dongle is easy enough because they simply plug into an available USB port on the computer, laptop or netbook that you're using for the job. A couple of minutes spent configuring the mobile broadband dongle and you should then be able to browse the web and catch up with your emails on the go. Dongles for laptops are everywhere these days and they're all generally of a decent standard.

In quite a few cases it’s now possible to get a free dongle, although this is largely in relation to pay monthly dongle deals, and these are covered in our comparison tables. You might find that it’s worth looking into contract dongles instead of pay-as-you-go packages as these generally allow much more freedom because you’re paying the mobile broadband provider for the privilege and committing to them for a fixed period of time.

Of course, if you're only an accessional user of 3G broadband or 3G Internet then a pay-as-you-go broadband dongle will be able to serve you well, although it's still worthwhile spending some time looking at the best dongle deals that feature in our comparison tables above. Most dongles for laptops will work without problems, but when you're looking at PAYG dongles then check your machine has the right hardware specification such as the right USB socket and then also check dongle deals for the amount of data usage you are allowed and what sort of speeds you can hope to get.

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Contract dongles

Heavier users of mobile broadband might wish to look at the comparison tables for contract dongles. This is a package where you pay a monthly charge for the dongle over a fixed length of time, often 12 or 24 months, but there are many variations on this. You'll find that many of the contract dongle deals in our comparison tables will come with a free dongle as part of the package, unlike PAYG deals where a free dongle is fairly unusual unless there is some sort of promotional campaign going on.

Some contract dongle deals also throw in a free laptop as part of the package too, and generally speaking this will also include a free mobile broadband dongle. These packages can be an excellent way of getting started in the world of mobile wireless broadband, although you'll generally pay more for the privilege because the laptop is essential factored in to the overall cost of the pay monthly fixed-term contract.

Whatever the dongle option that you pursue you'll find that all of them offer the ultimate in plug-and-play freedom. Dongles will easily fit into your pocket, they can be plugged in and connected in mere seconds, assuming you have adequate coverage, and you can be browsing the web and catching up with email in no time at all. The benefit of PAYG dongles over contract dongles is that you’re not tied in for any period at all but pay monthly is more flexible for regular users.

Whether you get a free dongle or you've had to pay for it, a PAYG dongle simply needs to have credit put on to it and you're then free to start surfing using the mobile broadband signal. With a dongle broadband can be accessed throughout the UK, but use our comparison tables above in order to check what the coverage levels are like in the areas you expect to visit. Some places in the UK have little or no coverage, in the same way as mobile phones are often unable to get a signal.

PAYG dongles are available from all major UK providers such as 3 Mobile, Vodafone, T-Mobile, O2 and Orange. The tables will not just show you which is the cheapest, but allow you to narrow down your search and find the right option for you. It is also possibl to read current customer reviews to find out their experience with dongles.

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More freedom with contract dongles

Many people often go for contract dongles because while they do tie you into a fixed term period, you'll often find that you get a free dongle as part of the deal. A broadband dongle will generally be thrown in along with other incentives with contract packages that you don't normally get with a PAYG mobile broadband dongle. Take a look at our comparison tables above in order to get an overview of the perks available to contract dongle customers.

Unless you only use a PAYG dongle for a tiny amount of time every now and then, some of the best dongle deals are those available on pay monthly packages. Contract dongles and the deals that come with them operate in the same way as PAYG, but they're often easier to use and cheap to run than if you compare it to pay-as-you-go dongle broadband. Even downloading data can be a much more pleasurable experience with contract dongles because the terms and conditions often allow more data to be uploaded and downloaded.

Having said that, whether you have a free dongle or a contract dongle, it's not a great idea to think you'll be able to depend on mobile broadband to take the place of your speedier home-based service. ADSL or a cable based broadband services offers a much more robust way of uploading and downloading data, so mobile broadband dongles are only really best suited for having supplementary access to the web.

Many contract dongles will allow you to download decent amounts of data, and there are generally fair usage policies in place outlining the limits, but it's not wise to think you can do away with your broadband at home. Even if you're a casual user of broadband, a mobile broadband dongle can still be pushed to the maximum limits if you start trying to download TV shows or stream content. With the current technology in place it'll be a while yet before we can have a truly independent dongle broadband range of services.

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Pay monthly dongles for laptops

If you take a look at the comparison tables above you'll get a great overview of just how much potential a pay monthly dongle has. What's more, at any one time there are always a wealth of different deals being offered by mobile providers and these can include anything from a free microSD card, a small data device that plugs into a dongle or mobile phone, through to cinema tickets for nothing.

Be sure to keep a keen eye focused on our comparison charts as deals are evolving all the time, so what you see offered in a dongle deal on one day may well not be around the next. These new prices are coming through all the time, and as a result, pay monthly dongle deals change constantly. As you'll see from one or two of the dongle deals, it's now also possible to take advantage of a MiFi router. This is a small device styled in a similar way to a regular dongle but it allows several devices to connect to it wirelessly.

This great new innovation subsequently enables mobile broadband contract dongles to share their signal to more than one device, so a whole family can tap into one mobile broadband account. These devices aren't all that common at present, but as the technology surrounding mobile broadband improves it's likely that we'll see them becoming available through a variety of network provider packages as part of a mobile broadband dongle contract.

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Top 5 Mobile Broadband Help

• Mobile Broadband Beginners Guide
• Mobile Broadband Coverage
• Mobile Broadband Download Limits
• Using Mobile Broadband Abroad
• Mobile Broadband Awards

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