O2 Mobile Broadband review

This review was updated in August 2011 to reflect the findings of our latest survey

O2’s mobile broadband plans include unlimited use of BT Openzone and The Cloud WiFi hotspots, which is great if you do most of your mobile surfing in the city. These hotspots are much faster than 3G, and banish any worries of weak 3G reception or using up your monthly allowance.

There are only three price plans to choose from so there’s not much confusion. A one-month rolling contract provides 1GB of mobile broadband for £10.21 a month, and includes a free 7.2Mbit/s dongle. Excess data charges are relatively low at 2.4p per MB.

There are two pay-as-you-go options. One comes with 2GB of bundled credit, which must be used within a month and costs £36 up-front. The other comes with 1GB credit but gives you three months to use it. This costs £31.

Top-ups cost £2.04 for each day that you use it (up to a 200MB limit), while a month’s use costs £10.21 for 1GB or £15 for 2GB. As such, the Pay & Go plan duplicates the 1GB, £10.21 tariff available on Pay Monthly, and the added flexibility of the various other deals – plus the ability to take a break – make it a better choice. £2 a day with no monthly charge is ideal for occasional use, and the two monthly tariffs are both competitive, particularly for city dwellers who will make good use of the unlimited OpenZone access. However, for very high-volume users, 3’s £16 Everyday Broadband 15GB plan makes more sense.

Unfortunately, our survey respondents weren’t too impressed with the service’s performance overall, giving a reliability rating of 69 per cent and a relatively low customer satisfaction score of 57 per cent. These results take the shine off some otherwise excellent deals.

See the next page for a full break-down and individual ratings of O2’s services and the results of our broadband survey.

Broadband survey performance results

These results were compiled from our online survey, where users were asked to rate their broadband supplier. In the case of customer satisfaction, this is an average of whether users would recommend their supplier and if they’re planning on staying with their current supplier.

Feature table (click to expand)