Mobile Broadband Pay as You Go Explained

Pay as You Go is Popular Option to Keep Spending in Control

Pay and Go or Pay-as-you-go or Prepaid is a popular payment option for people who don’t like their mobile spending to get out of control. Especially popular with young people (or more likely with their parents), Pay as you go has been available in the US for some time as an alternative to locking yourself in multi-year contract.

No such luck with mobile internet, unfortunately.

Even though mobile internet Pay and Go has proven rather popular in Europe, it was unavailable in the US until middle of this year. Read on to find out what changed…

So what is Mobile Broadband Pay as You Go exactly?

Pay and go~~ broadband~~ allows ~~you~~ to connect to the Internet over mobile network without ~~having to sign~~ any contract with ~~your~~ mobile operator. You can pay for the usage on the fly. There is no attachment to a monthly fee or multi-year commitment, unlike contracts. You will only pay when you connect to Internet. Actually, of course you will pay earlier by purchasing a specific value card, but the payment for your usage will be deducted from prepaid amount in real time.

As soon as the money runs out – your connection will be shut down. The huge advantage ~~of this model~~ is that it’s impossible to run up immense mobile internet bills, and you always can buy a card exactly when you need it.

Another great use of prepaid mobile broadband is when you are traveling abroad. Especially Europe and UK is good because of the multitude of Pay as You Go plans and heated competition between mobile operators there.

US is Not so Lucky.

At the time of this article, there is only one operator providing Pay and Go mobile broadband –Virgin Mobile USA.

Their service is called “Broadband2Go”, and to use it you would first need to buy Virgin’s mobile USB modem. It is re-branded Ovation MC760 from Novatel Wireless specifically for Virgin, and features CDMA EVDO RevA 3G mobile data technology (the same technology as on Sprint’s and Verizon’s networks) with built in MicroSd slot for cards up to 16Gb.

This sweet little Virgin modem will cost you modest $149.99, and is available for purchase online from BestBuy.
You should be aware that this modem will only work in North America, and not in Europe or Asia (check our Guides section for tips on using mobile internet when traveling).

The Options are:

• $10 for 100Mb of data
• $20 for 250Mb
• $40 for 600Mb, and
• $60 for 1Gb

The cheapest option of course is $60 card giving you slightly less than 6c per Megabyte, and the most expensive is $10 card with 10cents per Megabyte.

What’s the Catch?

Definitely this is more expensive compared to regular contract-based mobile internet plans, where $60 will get you 5Gb monthly allowance.

Another catch is that the cards will expire after 30 days of the first use ($10 card expires after 10 days).

Bottomline

Still, if you use mobile data ~~very~~ irregularly – ~~then in the long run~~ Pay as You Go ~~option~~ could be a winner for you and would save you money during the months when you don’t need mobile internet connection.

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