Pay as You Go Dongle Deals
The Pay as You Go dongle is fast becoming the UK’s favoured way of accessing mobile broadband with sales recently overtaking those of fixed mobile broadband dongle contracts. There are a number of reasons that make dongle Pay as You Go deals an attractive way to access the internet. Firstly with a dongle PAYG internet deal you don’t commit to a lengthy contract of 12 or 18 months as you would do with a normal mobile internet contract. Secondly you only pay for the data you use each month as you decide how much data to top up your pay as you go internet dongle with each month meaning that you are not paying for more data than you need. Additionally you get all of the benefits you would have with contract mobile broadband such as accessibility anywhere with coverage and ease of use by simply plugging your broadband PAYG dongle into the USB port on your laptop.
Which PAYG Dongle should I pick?
The first thing to do when choosing which dongle PAYG deal is right for you is to check which of the mobile networks have coverage in your area. You can check coverage by clicking on the ‘check coverage’ button listed next to each of the providers listed in the above comparison table. Some providers will tell you the strength of the coverage in your area; this is the biggest factor in the speed and reliability of connection so we advise going for a provider which has a strong level of coverage in your area. After this it’s down to picking a provider based on speed, cost and for some people the way the USB dongle looks! You can see this information in our comparison table and you can reads more about the individual providers and what other customers think of them in our mobile broadband reviews section.
Vodafone Pay as You Go Dongle
Vodafone have performed well in our own mobile broadband testing and deliver some of the best speeds to customers coming second according to the data collected from thousands of users who have ran a mobile broadband speed test on their provider. Data costs are competitive, the Vodafone PAYG dongle is quite attractive and reliability is on a par with or better than their rivals.
T-Mobile PAYG
The T-Mobile broadband daily plan one of the cheapest ways to get your hands on a broadband dongle pay as you go deal and gets you up and running with a healthy 2GB data allowance and speeds of up to 3.6MB. There is a minimum top up of £10 though.
O2 Pay as You Go
Their are regularly run discount deals on O2 pay as you go dongles which we always list on the comparison table so keep an eye out for these. In terms of performance O2 has great coverage and better than average customer service however speeds are a little behind Vodafone and 3 according to our speed test data. Nonetheless the positives out way the negatives and make O2 PAYG a good option in our opinion.
3 Dongles Pay as You Go
3 is one of the most improved providers when it comes to mobile broadband dongles. We do still hear complaints from some customers about coverage issues but overall 3 performs well in all of the key areas and offers the best value for money if you are after a cheap deal or just on a tight budget. Alongside Vodafone, 3 are the most popular choice with UK consumers partially due to their low cost deals making them one of the most affordable of all UK mobile networks. If you are considering buying a 3 deal keep an eye on our comparison tables which list any discounts and the latest offers and prices.
Orange
Though not strictly a pay as you go plan Orange do offer a 1 month contract £10 a month deal at the time of writing which is a good short term contract alternative and is worth considering. The plan offers a 1GB data allowance which is adequate for most light to medium internet users.
Virgin
Like Orange, Virgin are yet to enter the PAYG dongle arena, however once they do we will list their data plans on our comparison tables so you will be able to see how they stack up against the competition.
