Broadband via your mobile phone

At the height of the internet boom, mobile phone companies dug deep into their pockets to buy licences for the new third-generation (3G) networks.

Spending many billions of pounds, they promised ‘broadband’ speeds on mobile devices, opening up a whole new range of services.

To date, that’s tended to mean ‘walled gardens’ of fairly uninspiring content, with the opportunity to download a few low-resolution video clips of famous moments in history, or mobile TV services that offer you the option of paying several pounds a month for a grainy picture that very few would watch.

Even video calling is little used. The mobile networks may have spent a fortune on their 3G services, believing in the adage “If you build it, they will come”, but most of us found the experience frustrating and not worth the bother or the expense.

But there are attractions ­ as long as you have cellular coverage, you’re not reliant on a flaky copper cable, and you can take your connection with you wherever you go.

There are many reasons why mobile data hasn’t really been as popular as was anticipated. One is the greed of the networks; with sky-high fees for just a few megabytes of data a month, and restrictions on some networks that prevent you, for example, using a VPN. Those with laptops have tended to find it easier to sit down at a Wifi hotspot ­ and they’ll very likely get better speeds, for the second problem that has afflicted the 3G networks is that, by the time they were online, the promised 384Kbits/sec didn’t seem very impressive, at a time when domestic broadband coverage was rolling out and offering megabit speeds.

So what’s new?
Mobile technology hasn’t stood still either, of course, and most of the UK’s networks are rolling out HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access), often referred to as ‘3.5G’. Although the coverage isn’t yet as extensive as plain old 3G, where it’s available HSDPA can boost download speeds to a theoretical 1.8Mbits/sec now, with higher speeds available soon ­ Vodafone is promising 7Mbits/sec “imminently”.

HSUPA (high-speed uplink packet access), coming to Vodafone later this year, will provide faster uploads too ­ at the moment mobile data connections are asymmetric, which is fine for things like web browsing, but not always ideal for sending large quantities of email, FTP use or remote working.

Speed, of course, isn’t everything ­ fast networks won’t be used if they’re cripplingly expensive. Anyone who’s ever used data abroad could be forgiven for thinking that their mobile phone company has tried to recoup the whole cost of the 3G licence from them personally ­ with charges up to £10 per megabyte, it’s enough to put most people off. And even within the UK, the charges for data have tended to be on the excessive side; add to that the need to invest in a top-of-the-range phone or an expensive data card for a laptop, and mobile data has, not surprisingly, been a poor cousin to Wifi hotspots.

But now, at last, it’s all changing. Firstly, there’s an increasing amount of equipment that can connect to the 3G networks ­ even relatively cheap phone handsets come equipped with 3G and can work as a modem via Bluetooth. And at the same time, data cards and USB modems for 3G are much cheaper. Companies like Dell, Sony and Acer are now selling laptops with a slot for a standard HSDPA 3G Sim card too.

But the big change is in the mobile phone companies themselves, who seem to have belatedly realised that if data is affordable, it will be used. One of the first to take a bold step was T-Mobile with its Web’n’Walk price plans, which originally included 1GB of data for £29 per month; now the included allowance is trebled for the same price.

But the most dramatic announcement was this summer from newcomer 3, which announced a plan offering 1GB of data for £10 per month, or 7GB for only £25. At prices like these, mobile data starts to become an affordable option for many ­ potentially as a replacement for your ADSL or cable broadband at home.