How to Compare Mobile Broadband Offers

Posted by Mobile Warp on Oct 18, 11:36 AM in Bundles, Guides, How To section
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When searching for mobile broadband packages on the internet, you’re most likely to find yourself lost in many confusing offers, deals, and bundles such as free modems, netbooks with discounts, pay-as-you-go, as well as different data download allowances and options like free WiFi thrown in.

What’s the secret of finding a cost effective mobile broadband package that will suit your needs for years to come without unintentional excitement and disappointment?

Mobile operator sites are confusing to say the least and don’t make thing any easier even for a technically savvy researcher.

So, what’s the secret of finding a cost effective mobile broadband package that will suit your needs (hopefully for years to come) and without any unintentional excitement or disappointment?
The answer is rather simple – educated research and honesty with yourself.

Why:

The first thing you should be asking yourself is why. Why do you really need it and what are you planning to use mobile internet for? Reading news and checking email versus constantly downloading or streaming videos is bound to make a big difference on your data consumption, and, in the end, on your mobile bill.

Data usage:

Mobile broadband is charged by ~~the data transfer rate –~~ how much data you actually download – as opposed to the way phone call costs are based on how long you actually stay on the phone. This is also known as download limit. This download limit is the maximum amount of data transfer you can achieve in a month that would be included in your plan. Any data over that limit will result in additional charges, called “overage charges”.

Data actually is not being transferred all the time when using internet (unless you are streaming), but only when you are actually requesting something from a network: loading a page or downloading files. You should be aware, however, that some of the modern web 2.0 internet applications perform data transfers in the background and they may be rather heavy (e.g Google Maps downloads new map images every time you zoom or pan or change the view of your map).

Data usually isn’t being transferred when you’re reading a fully loaded page and not accessing anything else.

Having decided what and how often you will be doing using mobile internet, you can evaluate your data download needs per month.

There is a number of mobile broadband data calculators provided by mobile operators that you could use. Even though none of them are in the US, they are still handy tools to use:

Another way to evaluate your data download needs is to use your own spreadsheet with some estimates of data usage.

As a rough estimate, you could use the following table:

100 emails without attachment = 1Mb (text emails “weight” less than html-formatted)
3 emails with attachments (approx 300Kb per attachment) = 1Mb
1 email with photo or one below 5MP photo upload = 1Mb
1 5Mb photo upload = up to 1.5Mb
1hr web browsing = 20Mb
1 hour usage of instant messenger = 1Mb
one MP3 download = 4Mb
one 10-minute video download = 40Mb
one movie trailer download = 10Mb

Please note that those are very rough estimates and, especially downloads, will depend on the type of content that you are downloading (e.g. MP3 bitrate or resolution and quality of photo images).

However, having gone through this estimation exercise, you will find out that the US operators actually decided to simplify thing a lot for you. Basically there are only two plans to choose from: 250Mb/month and 5Gb per month.

Since 250Mb/month is too small allowance for any meaningful usage, and the risk of overpaying if exceeding the allowance is too large, therefore, the only sensible recommendation would be to go with 5Gb plan.

Still it never hurts to understand what you are actually planning to do with mobile internet, and how much data you are budgeting. Then you will be able to have a feel of a slack that you have, and in time will develop a feeling of when you should worry about going overboard.

When

When – how often, for how long, and at what times of day will you be using mobile internet?

Basically if you will be using it on a regular basis – then you should go for a contract and a bundle. If you only need it occasionally – go for Virgin’s pay as you go card

Mobile internet is billed on a downloaded data basis – not on the amount of time you will stay online. Mobile modems drain power less than WiFi (due to highly optimized Over the Air interface), and it’s easier to get connected as opposed to WiFi, so mobile internet is really well suited for fast occasional use when you don’t have time to fumble with WiFi networks search, ssid, and login. When you do light browsing (mostly text and web-optimized images) and a lot of reading – your data consumption is not really that high, which makes mobile internet ideal.

If you will be using it in peak cell hours (mobile data network shares radio spectrum with voice calls) – then mobile internet may not be suitable for you – you may find yourself in a world of pain with slow connections in a congested cell of a mobile network.

So, if you are unsure how often you will go online or how much data you will need – then it makes sense to go with prepaid card. Just don’t forget that there is usually time limit on pay as you go cards, and it will expire usually in 30 days of the first use.

Where

Similarly, mobile data works the best when you are not moving, and in the areas of moderate cellular traffic load. If you are planning to use mobile internet on a fast moving train – test it first. If you are planning to use it in random locations in the city (and especially outside of the city) – test it.

The quality of mobile data connection depends very much on radio conditions~~ – distance to the cell tower, line of sight and obstacles to radio signal propagation (e.g. tall buildings),~~ and on the congestion in the ~~particular~~ cell. You may find the connection especially bad in places where a lot of people are likely to use mobile network at the same time, e.g. in airports, during trade shows, etc.

The Cost:

There are two options when buying mobile broadband, the first is buying a contract that will lock you in a plan ranging anywhere from a month to two years. The other way, best for occasional irregular use, is the pay-as-you-go option.

This lets you pay only when you’re going online and data is being transferred, so you won’t be wasting money by buying a contract and finally not using it due to bad planning.

Coverage, Signal, and Real Data Rates:

Finally the most important point, without coverage, mobile broadband is useless. Make sure to get the mobile broadband where you will be using it! The signal strength for the particular area or areas you will need is also crucial so make sure you get the one with the best signal. Today in the U.S. pretty much every densely populated area is covered by most providers, but just to be on the safe side, check service availability and data transfer rates in main locations where you are planning to connect to Mobile Internet.

The easiest way to check the actual data rate is to use your mobile phone if you already subscribe to mobile data (which is pretty much always the case these days).
Just go to one of the mobile speed test sites from your phone’s native mobile browser (don’t use Opera mini for this).

Some of the useful sites are:

Modem Discounts and Bundles

All of the operators these days are selling mobile internet the way they were selling mobile phones for so long: they concentrate on selling you devices – mobile modems – not the plans.

Here, the choice is simple: select the best modem for you chosen network based on specs and reviews. You can check our Mobile Modems Directory and Modems Comparison Pages

The price difference between the cheapest and the most expensive modem bundles is not that large (maximum about $75), and you will pay much more than that during 2 contractual years of using mobile data. It does not make sense to save 50 bucks and then suffer for 2 years from inferior performance.

Check out today’s top mobile modems: