Three UK Launches New Big Data 40GB Mobile Broadband Plan

Mobile operator Three UK has added a new option to their Mobile Broadband plans, which gives you 40GB (GigaBytes) of data to use for the not insignificant price of £45 per month, although this is still double the previous top allowance of 20GB (from £21-23 per month).

The 40GB option is currently only available to those who take a Huawei E5573 4G Mobile Wi-Fi (MiFi) or the lower spec E5330 device on a 12 month contract. The E5573 bundle comes in at £45 per month and then £19 (one-off) for the hardware, while the E5330 costs £45 per month and £9 for the hardware.

Curiously the new option is quite difficult to find on their website and for some reason we couldn’t locate the E5573 bundle, although the quickest way to find the E5330 one is by typing “E5330 40GB” into their website search system. It’s worth nothing that this plan also includes 600 minutes of UK calls and all-you-can-eat texts, while usage beyond the 40GB allowance will cost 1p per MB.

Three UK currently claims that customers on their network (8.4 million in total) gobble 45% of the UK’s mobile data traffic and that their average data usage per customer reached 4.65GB in June 2015, with over 50% of them making use of the new 4G network that is offered at no extra cost.

Admittedly 40GB might still be someway off Ofcom’s last estimate of 58GB for the average monthly data consumption of a fixed line home broadband consumer, although it’s getting a lot closer and for some this tariff could thus be quite an exciting prospect. It’s certainly easier than buying two 20GB plans.

On the other hand EE are doing a summer special offer that gives you 100GB of monthly 4G usage, but this is only “free” for two months and after that it runs out (customers must top up £10 within 14 days of getting it to buy the Data Pack and then text SUMMER100 to 150 in order to activate the 200GB free UK data).