Mobile Broadband/phone sim

skiTTish

Hi
I have a mobile contract and mobile broadband ( via dongle ) for them both I am paying £35 a month
I have been told it may be cheaper for me to have a contract phone that has unlimited broadband and use the sim card in my dongle when i want to access the net on my laptop
now ,
it this possible ?
Is it cheaper ?
How do you do it ?
Do you need to 'unlock' your dongle ?
If it is possible ,which is the best deal?
Cheers

Snakeeyes21

it is possible, but the unlimited internet usage on phone contracts is usually limited to under 1gb a month, except for 3 where you can usually get away with around 2gb usage, which is essentially unlimited on a phone because it uses alot less data.

if you use it fairly often to connect to your laptop that usage limit will be eaten up quite quickly.

you will have to get the dongle unlocked if the sim you want to use is from a different network, but if you have a fairly new phone that uses 3g or HSDPA you can connect to your laptop via a cable or bluetooth and get the same speeds as the dongle gives.

The best deal? that depends on what kind of minutes / texts you want

ciarondunne

You also need to check the terms of your mobile phone contract. Some specifically allow "tethering", as this is called. For example, O2 doesn't allow tethering with the iPhone, but Orange does...