Mobile Internet in the UK

• Mobile Internet on a Laptop / PC
• Mobile Internet on a mobile phone or PDA
• Internet via a landline phone

Mobile Internet on a PC / Laptop / Mac

If you're looking to get high-speed data access without needing to be plugged into a fixed-wire Broadband connection , then there are a number of options:

1. Broadband USB Data Modem

Both T-Mobile, Vodafone and 3 are offering USB data modems that plug into a spare USB port, to provide laptops and desktops with high-speed Internet access over the 3G mobile phone data network. Here's a quick summary of the offers:

• T-Mobile Web 'n' Walk - Their Web 'n' Walk Plus tariff provides high speed mobile Internet access using a USB modem. The USB modem is sent for next-day delivery. Price is £15 a month (there's a monthly "fair usage" limit of 3Gigs a month). There's also a Pay-As-You-Go option. More at www.t-mobile.co.uk
  
  
• 3 Broadband to Go - 3 is offering a high-speed service with a USB dongle for laptops - There are three versions, with monthly download limits of 1GB, 3GB or 7GB. Prices starting from £10 a month. A free USB modem is provided on all 24 month contracts - we review one of these, the ZTE on our USB Modems page. More at www.three.co.uk
  
  
• Vodafone Half Price Mobile Broadband - Speeds of up to 7.2Meg, Vodafone's Mobile Broadband is now Half Price for Life - at £15 a month for 3gig per month. Available with a USB modem or a Pebble modem. More details at www.vodafone.co.uk.

2. Mobile Phone as a modem

This is a slightly more fiddly option, but is better for situations where you only require occasional Internet sessions from a laptop.

Many mobile phones particularly smartphones and high-end mobiles, can be used as a data modem. Effectively, you set up your mobile phone for GPRS or 3G data access (your mobile phone Network Operator may need to enable this service for you). You can then connect your mobile phone to your laptop (typically using a USB cable, Bluetooth, or Infra-red), then set-up your laptop to connect to the Internet using the connected mobile phone as a modem.

3. Wi-fi Hotspots

There are thousands of wi-fi hotspots - in airports, coffee shops, fast food restaurants and shopping centres. If you have a portable computer that's wi-fi enabled, or you can get a wi-fi adapter, you should be able to make use of a wi-fi hotspot. The downside is that there aren't that many hotspots around, and access isn't always cheap. For more on wi-fi, see our Wi-fi page.

Here are some useful links:

• Information on setting up a laptop: GPRS Laptop Page
• Smartphones: Our Smartphone page

Internet on a mobile phone / PDA

One great way of keeping connected whilst away from your desktop or laptop, is on a mobile phone. There's a whole stack of connected "Smartphones" out there that come with the required software for connecting to the Internet for surfing and email.

Typically, they will connect using either 3G or the slower GPRS data service. Many smartphones and PDAs also come with wi-fi, so if you're in range of a Wi-fi hotspot, you may be able to get faster Internet that way.

We have two particular favourites:

1. Windows Mobile devices. Typically these either have a touch-screen, or a keyboard, and come with Messaging (for POP or IMAP email) and a cut-down version of Internet Explorer, for web browsing. Easy to use, and powerful.
   In the UK, we recommend that XDA range from o2 - our favourite is the o2 XDA Orbit. Check out shop.o2.co.uk for details of their XDA devices, or see our Windows Mobile page.
   
   
   Web Browsing on an XDA Orbit Windows Mobile
   
   
2. The Apple iPhone. This phone had its much-hyped launch in December 2007 - for us, it's one of the best mobile devices we've ever used for surfing - the web browser is very, very impressive, and the email client gets the job done nicely. Possibly a little over-priced, and not the most powerful phone in the world, but with its gorgeous touch screen and powerful Safari browser, if you do a lot of Mobile Internet, this is well worth a look.

Web Browsing on the UK iPhone

Useful links:

• Connecting a PDA: Windows Mobile, Symbian OS / Nokia or Palm and Psion
• Choosing a connected PDA: Online PDA Guide
• GPRS on a mobile: GPRS on a Pocket PC

Portable modem (fixed line)

Speed up your dial-up - If you're looking to get a faster connection speed from your dial-up connection, consider a dial-up accelerator. If you are running on a dial-up (narrowband) connection, the speed difference with a service such as the one offered by OnSpeed can be dramatic. It should increase your speed by up to 10 times. To use it, you'll need to download the special application from www.onspeed.com. Once installed, you won't even notice it's there, it runs in the background speeding up your Internet connection and compressing data automatically.

Broadband Links

• Voice over IP - Discussed in Show 8 of our podcast
• Vonage - For cheap voice calls over the Internet
• Click here for information on dial-up ISPs
  

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