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T-Mobile mobile broadband

T-Mobile overview

  • T-mobile broadband contracts give you unlimited browsing: there's a fair usage policy of 3GB but no extra charges if you exceed this, althoughyour downloading/streaming video could be restricted at peak times.
  • As well as PAYG, you can now pay up front for 3 months' data preloaded on a PAYG dongle.
  • T-Mobile's mobile broadband deals are all available on business contracts
  • Free delivery for online orders

Best selling T-Mobile mobile broadband deals

T-Mobile Broadband Genie Road Test results

T-Mobile Road test
T-Mobile Huawei 615 dongle
Downloads
rating -3 stars3 stars
Uploads
rating -4 stars4 stars
Most stable
rating -4 stars4 stars
Coverage
rating -4 stars4 stars
Feelgood factor
rating -3 stars3 stars
Dongle software
rating -3 stars3 stars
Overall rating
rating -4 stars4 stars

May 2011

2011 Awards: Best Coverage Winner

This was a disappointing year for T-Mobile's new Huawei 630 dongle after last year's strong overall Dongle on the Move victory. Perhaps it should have stuck with ZTE? While it managed to keep hold of its Best Coverage award, it was otherwise a barren year for the former champion.

But it was far from a negative trip. T-Mobile's software fell just short of being placed, thanks to really good recent upgrades from a couple of its rivals. The same can be said for stability, where it was only just outperformed by Orange for runner-up. It was a shame it was tough to get it going again when it did lose its signal though. This was a problem we complained of last year and it's very disappointing that this doesn't seem to have been addressed.

If we'd given a streaming award, T-Mobile would've been a strong runner-up in the category. However, generally slow speeds left it wanting in both the Best Downloader and Best Uploader categories. For many though, this wouldn't be an issue on the move. If you can happily listen to Spotify, watch low quality YouTube without too much buffering, then browse the web and check your email, many would say a dongle is doing its job. Odd though, that where we were complaining about erratic speeds from it last year, this time they were steady and consistent.

With T-Mobile's fantastic offer of no charges for going over your monthly download allowance (you may have your speed slowed though), it's still a dongle we would recommend. However, on this trip it simply wasn't in the same league for speed as the winners.

Overall analysis of the Mobile Broadband Genie Road Trip 2011

by Chris Marling May 2011

About T-Mobile

T-Mobile is seen as one of the old, reliable 3G mobile broadband operators: there isn't much to write home about on speed, but the connection is normally strong. It has recently been getting down with the kids through its highly successful 'Life's For Sharing' ad campaigns, but the core of its audience remains older and business customers looking for reliability over flashy. Importantly, it is also the only mobile internet provider that doesn't charge people excess fees for going over their agreed mobile internet usage cap: instead, customers will receive a series of letters if they abuse its fair usage policy, and perhaps a cap in speed.

Its 'steady Eddie' reputation nicely fits the old 'reliable' cliché about its parent company; it is a subsidiary of German firm Deutsche Telekom. It was previously known as Mercury One 2 One, the world's first GSM 1800 network when launched in 1993. It launched 3G services in 2003 and its hugely popular 'Flext' mobile phone tariffs in 2007. It was quick out of the traps with mobile broadband: UK customers could get mobile internet contracts from October 2006 and it was the first provider to launch pay as you go mobile broadband deals a year later. T-Mobile began to offer so-called 'free' laptop deals with mobile broadband contracts in January 2009.

T-Mobile signed a 3G network access agreement with 3 in 2008: at the time the largest of its kind worldwide (more recently trumped by a similar deal between O2 and Vodafone).

T-Mobile was crowned Broadband Genie Road Trip Awards Winner in 2010, taking the crown from Virgin Media (which uses its network anyway).

In the UK, T-Mobile integrated with Orange in July 2010. While keeping their separate identities on the high street, the combined networks were renamed Everything Everywhere. The long term plan is for a 'super-network' giving bigger and better coverage. EE is also investing heavily in 4G, running trials throughout the UK and pushing for Ofcom to allow the company to run a 4G network on its spare network capacity.

T-Mobile customer reviews

Show all 312 T-Mobile Mobile Broadband reviews»

  • unhappy

    by john watson at 18:38 on 15 May 2012Report abuse

    t mobile is rubbish

  • happy

    by rjb at 03:39 on 6 May 2012Report abuse

    I dont understand everybody moaning about using these t-mobile dongles.I am in stoke on trent and recieve a brilliant signal.Also very easy to check the signal in your area via your post code before you buy,ask in the shop before you purchase.As for content lock just use hide my ass,its a add on and once installed you click on the icon in your taskbar when you want to visit sites that are normally being blocked.At all other times just dont use it so no need to ring anyone or visit any shop or give credit card details over the internet.Also when you first plug in the dongle and the t-mobile software installs you will also be installing bytemobile optimization client (another add on) easily turned off or disabled in task manager or via your add ons in your browser.If you do turn it off your monthly gb allowance will get used up alot more quickly so i would just leave it and if you click on tools from the t-mobile connection manager you can go to options and then accelerator and adjust the browsing speed and picture clarity from there. I have used 3three dongles in the past and maybe thay are the cheapest as in £10 for 1gb for 30 days or £15 for 3gb for 90 days,even cheaper off ebay though but once the gb is used no more internet where as on t-mobile you can still browse so perfect in my eyes.Also my suggestion is to get some usb cables and always put the dongle in a window for better reception,just keep checking to make sure its not getting to warm cause that means its struggling for a signal.Now t-mobile share the signal with orange i have found where i had a bad signal before now automatically pick a strong orange signal up so also worth checking how the orange signal is in your area before buying.Also i suggest turning off your automatic updates in windows and on your anti virus software and that way you can control when you download any updates.I suggest doing it late at night and only when you have plenty of credit left.

  • happy

    by Paps at 00:31 on 18 Apr 2012Report abuse

    T-mobile is the best network for mobile and mobile broadband i've been using it since 2006 no complaint at all i'm using mobile broadband regularly as i dont have l.line broadband never disappointed about download limit or speed. will recommend to everyone

  • unhappy

    by paranitharan at 13:05 on 17 Apr 2012Report abuse

    please remove content lock and make happy

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