Best Mobile Broadband Network - Our View

1st - Vodafone Mobile Broadband

Visit Vodafone Mobile Broadband

Vodafone Mobile Broadband Network Performance: Vodafone has excellent performance when you have good signal strength in a 3G area. In these conditions, it's fast enough to stream video and use Skype and other VOIP services. Outside a 3G area, as with other mobile broadband services, the service is slower than dial-up.

Vodafone Mobile Broadband Coverage: Coverage levels are good in the UK's major cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh. See our Vodafone Mobile Broadband coverage map for an overview of Vodafone 3G coverage.

General Usability: Generally good. However, the service does downsample images to save bandwidth and a stringent content filter is in place which you have to phone customer support to remove.

Customer Service: Although waiting times can be high, customer support is good and a support forum is also available.

Quality of Connection Software: Good, shows the bandwidth being used. 

Chance of high over usage limit bills: There have cases of very high bills when customers used their Vodafone Mobile Broadband abroad. However, providing you are in a Vodafone Passport enabled country, you no longer have to select a preferred partner network, and you can roam to your heart's content.

Conclusion: We use Vodafone Mobile Broadband ourselves, and have been impressed by the service when in a 3G area. Vodafone offer good levels of customer support and we feel they are currently leading the way with their mobile broadband service.

Visit Vodafone Mobile Broadband | View Vodafone Mobile Broadband User Reviews

2nd - T-Mobile Broadband

Network Performance: Generally quite reasonable, the network offers above average reliability especially in major cities. 3G coverage is very good in London. The T-Mobile HotSpot network means that coverage is usually good at popular business locations, e.g. major UK airports and Starbucks coffee bars.

General Usability: There is an adult content filter in place and sites like Facebook are initially blocked. The content filter can be removed by phoning customer services, who will confirm you are over 18 by making a small charge to your credit card and refunding it.

Customer Service: Reasonable.

Quality of Connection Software: Decent software that shows you your download and upload data usage making it easy to keep an eye on usage.

Chance of high over usage limit bills: TBC

Conclusion: Worth considering, particularly if there are T-Mobile HotSpots where you will be using the service regularly.

Visit T-Mobile Broadband | View T-Mobile Broadband User Reviews

3rd - O2 Mobile Broadband

Network Performance: Behind that of Vodafone and T-Mobile.

General Usability: TBC

Customer Service: Reasonable, generally quite easy to get through to.

Quality of Connection Software: TBC

Chance of high over usage limit bills: TBC

Conclusion: TBC

Visit O2 Mobile Broadband | View O2 Mobile Broadband User Reviews

4th - 3 Mobile Broadband

Network Performance: Can be good in a 3G area. However, user reviews suggest there are serious issues if too many users start using the service in a given area, severely affecting performance. Users have reported the service working well for a given time until too many people started using it in the local area and the service becoming extremely slow, i.e. there appear to be network capacity issues.

3 Mobile Broadband Coverage: See our 3 Mobile Broadband Coverage Map for an overview of UK coverage.

General Usability: TBC

Customer Service: Room for improvement. If you are unlucky enough to experience a degradation of service in your area customer service can prove unresponsive.

Quality of Connection Software: Generally OK, but some experience issues with reliability in installing itself.

Chance of high over usage limit bills: TBC

Conclusion: 3 Mobile Broadband is priced extremely competitively, and some pleased customers have a high speed broadband service at a good price. However, the customer service is not of the same standard as that of the leading providers. This network may be more susceptible to capacity issues, as some users for which the service was working well have found that the service can become very slow and stay that way. When this has happened, the users have found the issue hard to resolve with customer support.

Visit 3 Mobile Broadband | View 3 Mobile Broadband User Reviews

5th - Orange Mobile Broadband

Network Performance: Variable. Some report good levels of 3G coverage and are happy customers, whilst others have been disappointed (although that might be because they were incorrectly advised that they were in a 3G area).

General Usability: TBC

Customer Service: Reasonable but not sector leading.

Quality of Connection Software: Some room for improvement as some have found a laptop reboot is needed for the USB dongle connection to be recognised.

Chance of high over usage limit bills: TBC

Conclusion: Worth considering if you are in an Orange 3G area.

Visit Orange Mobile Broadband | View Orange Mobile Broadband User Reviews