5 hours' internet access per day?

james_joyce

Hi

A friend of mine says they only have 5 hours per day of internet access, as this was the cheapest available option.

I'm not sure if it's fixed-line or mobile broadband, but I do know they use it on a laptop at home.

Does this make any kind of sense? Any ideas what internet provider it might be? It all just sounds utterly bizarre to me.

Any ideas welcome...

Thanks

Cate1976

Most likely reason is that the subscription they have is one with a restricted amount of downloading a month which works out at 5 hours a day if they use the internet every day. Even if you're not actively downloading anything, you'll still be downloading by going on sites. Complicated to explain easily. I'd be thinking that they have mobile broadband via a dongle which will have ?GB allowance per month on it and it works out that if they don't download any music or games, they can be online for 5 hours a day.

james_joyce

Thanks, yes this looks like mobile broadband, which in turn doesn't seem to be the cheapest option for someone using the internet entirely at home. I'll try to check exactly which network and contract, but I'm wondering if they got tied into a long contract when they got the (free?) laptop.

macman

There is no 'free' laptop, and the contract is invariably 24m of expensive mobile broadband.
The cost of the (usually minimum spec) laptop is more than recovered over the length of the contract.

Cate1976

My husband wanted a new laptop last year, we didn't have the money to buy one so went for O2's mobile broadband. 24 month contract at £30 month. His laptop is a samsung R??? with decent spec. This was October last year.

macman

Cate1976 wrote: »

My husband wanted a new laptop last year, we didn't have the money to buy one so went for O2's mobile broadband. 24 month contract at £30 month. His laptop is a samsung R??? with decent spec. This was October last year.

Thank you for illustrating my point. You've probably got £10 of mobile broadband a month (worth £240) and a laptop worth £350 that you will be paying £480 for.
£720 in total, so that's a 37% interest rate in effect. Cheaper to buy it on a credit card or a personal loan.