BillMonitor

The world of contract mobile broadband is, mercifully, a little simpler than the pay as you go options. Every major network will give you a USB modem for free and a monthly allowance in gigabytes, and away you go. Beware, however, because there are a few gotchas to this whole thing: first, those free laptops aren’t always as free as they appear. If you’re going to be going for a £30 plan anyway, then yes, you might benefit, but don’t forget to check out the price of buying the laptop separately before you dive in, because often you’ll find yourself paying a hell of a lot more than you would if you’d just ordered it online and gone for a dongle instead. For this reason I’m not going to consider laptops, because here we’re all about saving money! Second, unlike phone tariffs, you often don’t gain a lot by taking a longer contract, so always consider taking a shorter contract if you’re not going to lose out on it. No-one likes being tied in!

Let’s start with Vodafone. £15 per month of your hard-earned cash gets you 3 gigabytes of data, and taking a 24 month contract will get you £5 off for the first 3 months. 5 gigabytes will set you back £25. If your heart is set on a ‘free’ laptop, you’ll pay £25 a month for 1 gigabyte of usage.

T-Mobile’s prices are almost identical: £15 for 3 gigabytes of usage, and 5gb for £30. It’s worth noting thst T-Mobile use a “fair usage” policy instead of an allowance, so if you go over it, you might find your net access locked down but you won’t get charged any extra. Again, there’s a laptop on offer.

O2 provide a reduced-VAT £14.69 price for 3 gigabytes, with 4 months of cheaper rental thrown in for the 24 month users. A huge 10 gigabyte allowance will cost you £30 – oh, wait, sorry, £29.38.

Orange offers a 1 gigabyte plan for low usage customers, but if you don’t buy online they’ll be a bit tight and charge you for the USB modem. It’s £9.79 a month for that, or £14.68 for 3 gigabytes. They also do a great value 10 gigabyte plan at £24.47 a month.

Three weigh in with a cheap cheap 1 gig for £10 plan, throwing in a free modem for anyone on an 18 or 24 month plan. If you want to go for 12 months it’ll cost you £48.93 to get set up. 3 gigabytes will cost you £15 a month for 12 months, and for the same price, you’ll get 5 gigabytes if you go for an 18 or 24 month contract. 7 gigabytes will set you back £25, and 15 gigabytes, the biggest plan on offer, will cost you £30.

That wraps up the choices on offer. Click through to the network sites if you want more information, or drop us an email and we’ll see if we can help.

If you do decide to go for that netbook, you may want to consider building it into a robot that can bring you popcorn.

Flora Graham of Crave wrote a lovely article about BillMonitor and we think it explains it all better than we ever could ourselves. Thanks a lot, CNet!

We always suspected it takes a PhD in mathematics to understand mobile phone contracts. Now Oxford boffins have proven it takes three of them.

You’re too kind, Flora!