02 Launches £2-per-day No-contract Mobile Broadband

O2 has launched a Pay & Go mobile broadband service offering with daily, weekly and monthly access fees, all including free wi-fi at 6,000 ‘The Cloud’ hotspots.
After paying a one-off fee of £29.99 for the USB modem, users can pay £2 per day, for a 500MB allowance; £7.50 for a week and 1GB allowance; or £15 for a month and 3GB allowance. O2 says the solution is perfect for those who travel on business once or twice a week, and don’t want to be tied to a contract. Users can buy mobile broadband credit at O2 stores, branches of Carphone Warehouse, via the O2 website, or by calling O2 customer services on 08705 214000.
Pay & Go mobile broadband customers will also benefit from O2’s new coverage checker and 50-day ‘Happiness Guarantee’. Since these new customer-focused measures were launched in November, O2 says it has seen a considerable drop in the number of returned USB modems, showing that simple, honest advice has led to consumers being better informed at the time of purchase.
O2 Mobile Broadband Pay & Go will offer download speeds of up to 3.6Mbps. The deal with The Cloud means users can access free wi-fi at 6,000 hotspots in pubs and cars, branches of McDonalds and at major airports. The dongle will identify the user as an O2 Mobile Broadband Pay & Go customer and so enable them to access the hotspot.
“Last month we stated our intention to clean up the mobile broadband market and give consumers the fairest and most honest deals,” says O2 Marketing Director, Peter Rampling. “Our O2 Mobile Broadband Pay & Go will appeal to those customers who want to snack on the Internet without the need to commit to a long term contract. Our younger customers want to live online and can do so with Pay & Go at affordable prices.”

Comments

[David Murphy]

O2 has been in touch to say it inadvertently supplied us with some erroneous information when we ran the story about the launch of its Pay & Go mobile broadband service last week.
At the time, we made a point of asking how users could top up their credit, and we were told that credit could be bought at O2 stores, branches of Carphone Warehouse, over the phone from O2 customer services, or online.
In fact, says O2, the only place you can top up is online. If you’re thinking what we were thinking when we heard this, i.e., how do you get online to top up if you have no credit left to get online with, don’t panic. O2 says that even if you are completely out of credit, the service will allow you to get online to top up, so you’ll never be stranded without Internet access.

David Murphy - Editor
We are happy to clarify the situation.