o2's joint mobile and home broadband service - wicked!

This is rather neat. In fact if I’d known about this a few days ago, I’d have held off going and buying the bog-standard BT Broadband for my new place.

O2 have launched a service combining both home broadband and mobile broadband. That makes a lot of sense to me. It’s a wickedly good deal.

Here’s the concept for the 18 month arrangement:

– You get your 8MB unlimited home broadband free for 12 months (after which you need to pay at least 7.50 per month).
– You get a free USB modem dongle — this is for your laptop when you’re out and about
– You get a free WiFi modem/router with automatic configuration — that’s for the home
– You get unlimited The Cloud wifi internet access when you’re out and about. (This I pay £12 quid a month for on it’s own, so this is a good inclusion.)
– Your home broadband is 8mb, unlimited fair-use downloads. No charges or anything like that.
– No connection fees or setup charges.

Total cost?

Wait for it.

20 quid a month. Right on! Or, you can get it all for £99.99 up front on a rolling 1-month contract.

That’s a deal and a half.

The joint offer is available for customers signing up to O2 Mobile Broadband between 1 August and 31 October 2008 who live within the O2 Home Broadband network – approximately 60% of the UK population. Customers wanting to upgrade to a higher speed package or not covered by O2’s broadband network will receive a £7.50 per month discount on their chosen plan for 12 months.

Both existing O2 Mobile and Home Broadband customers can also take advantage of this offer.

Let’s hear from Sally Cowdry, o2 Marketing Director:
“Whether our customers are watching a video or playing a game online at home, or browsing the internet on their laptop while on the move, our combined Broadband package is the perfect combination to help them stay connected wherever they are.”

This should be ready to purchase from the 4th of August next week.

If you were thinking of buying a tenner-a-month dongle from 3, this o2 deal (potentially, depending on your requirements), blows it out the water. Annoyingly I’m already paying BT £30 a month for broadband and £12 a month to The Cloud — and I haven’t yet included the mobile broadband charges I’m paying as well.. I’m already paying double. Joy!

More information here: www.o2.co.uk/broadband.