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Three 5G Broadband
24 month contract
No upfront cost
Unlimited
5G data
£11.00
for 6 months
then £22.00
Three 4G MiFi
24 month contract
No upfront cost
Unlimited
data
£12.00
for 6 months
then £24.00
Three 4G MiFi
12 month contract
£19.00 upfront
Unlimited
data
£14.00
for 6 months
then £28.00
Alcatel Pocket hotspot 4G
1 month contract
£48.00 upfront
5GB
data
£8.00
a month
Netgear Nighthawk M1
1 month contract
£251.99 upfront
5GB
data
£10.00
a month
Mobile broadband enables you to stay connected to the internet at home, on the move and even in your car, and better still you don't need a landline or even a contract to get switched on. All you need is a mobile broadband dongle or Mobile Wi-Fi device paired with a data SIM card and away you go!
Browsing on mobile broadband is now faster than ever thanks to a new breed of 5G mobile broadband dongles that take full advantage of the new faster 5G networks offered by UK operators. In many cases it can offer faster speeds than a fixed line broadband connection, and can also reach areas that fixed line broadband cannot – though 4G mobile broadband devices are also still available if you don't need the extra speed of 5G.
There are various different types of mobile broadband devices, different operators to choose from, and a host of different contracts and Pay As You Go plans to choose from though, and you’ll find the key mobile broadband devices below.
All four of the major UK networks offer mobile broadband, so there is a wide range of deals to choose from.
There are a number of different mobile broadband devices designed for slightly different purposes, as detailed below.
Mobile Wi-Fi enables you to share internet with a number of devices simultaneously over a personal Wi-Fi hotspot.
These clever devices take a single mobile broadband connection and broadcast it over a personal Wi-Fi network, meaning you can connect up to 64 Wi-Fi-enabled devices at once.
| EE 5G WiFi | EE 4G WiFi | |
| Three 4G MiFi | ||
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4G dongles are perfect for plugging straight into your laptop, Mac or PC's USB port and can prove cheaper if you don't need to share internet with multiple devices.
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You might think that 4G and 5G are just about smartphones, but there are any number of portable devices that could benefit from an internet connection, be it a tablet, a laptop, an e-reader or even a handheld console. With 4G or 5G mobile broadband you can essentially create a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot that’s with you wherever you go, thereby allowing you to get those things online.
4G and 5G mobile broadband works in much the same way as standard 4G and 5G, except rather than getting a signal to your phone, you get one to a USB stick or MiFi device, which can then either be plugged into the device that you want to give internet to or used to create a wireless signal which multiple devices can connect to.
The obvious advantage is that it gives you access to the internet on any and all of your devices, wherever you happen to be. You might be able to rely on Wi-Fi when at home, work or the local coffee shop, but on the train or in the middle of nowhere you’ll likely find that there’s no signal.
So this is a way to get online with devices that don’t have built in 4G or 5G capabilities. The same idea has existed with 3G for a long time, but the advantage of 4G mobile broadband is that it’s a lot faster, while 5G is faster still.
In fact, 5G can be so fast that in some places it’s even a viable alternative to fixed line broadband at home.
While 5G and 4G mobile broadband can certainly be fast it can also be expensive. It also sometimes has limited data, which is less of a factor with standard Wi-Fi. That said, many unlimited data plans are available too.
Another potential drawback is that coverage – especially with 5G – still isn’t perfect, so there will be places where you’ll be limited to a slow signal or may not even get a signal at all. Still, mobile broadband is certainly more widely available than Wi-Fi networks are.
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