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How to use mobile broadband in businesss
T-Mobile Mobile Broadband Plus
T-Mobile impressed during PC Pro’s speedtest of the UK’s major mobile broadband operators, as it was the only one to average over 2Mbits/sec in our London tests. Even on a train journey, when many operators fail to provide a stable service, it kept going with minimal interruptions.
Businesses should note the lack of a VPN client in the software, and also its over-enthusiastic use of image compression. To avoid these, you’ll need to download a separate application called Web’n’Walk Accelerator.
We do appreciate the software’s cleanly presented statistics, however, which clearly show how much data has been downloaded. Another nice aspect of T-Mobile’s offering is that it won’t penalise you if you go over your usage allowance, which can easily happen – and can lead to some costly surprises in the monthly bill. Instead, it “may restrict how you can use your plan, depending on how often you go over and by what amount”.
T-Mobile offers two different pay-monthly deals for businesses: one for 24 months at £12.77 a month, where the dongle is free; and one for 12 months at £17 a month, where the dongle costs £17 (all prices exc VAT).
Both of these plans include a 3GB data allowance, which is plenty for most uses, and unlimited access to T-Mobile’s Wi-Fi hotspot network. If you opt for T-Mobile’s Broadband Max package, you can also use VoIP services like Skype and the data allowance increases to 10GB per month.
T-Mobile also offers a pay-as-you-go service. The idea is to pay a one-off £43 exc VAT fee for the dongle, and then either pay £1.70 for a day’s access, £8.51 for a week’s access, and £17.02 for 30 days’ access.
On the 28th of November, however, T-Mobile announced that it had run out of stock of its dongles. As such, you’ll have to wait until more stock arrives or sacrifice the free Wi-Fi access and choose Virgin’s rebranded T-Mobile offering instead.
