Orange tops the pile with new lowest mobile broadband prices, under £5 a month

It's all good news for mobile broadband customers at the moment, with providers falling over themselves to be able to boast the lowest mobile broadband rates in the country.

Today it's Orange's turn to lead the race, with various extensions to its mobile broadband portfolio, including a new monthly price plan which comes in under £5 per month, making it the cheapest in the UK - although you have to already be an Orange customer to take advantage of this pricing. The new tariff is an 18 month contract, and while it does have a fairly restrictive 500Mb data limit, it is a good low cost way of getting online on the move for those who don't want to spend a lot of time browsing or downloading.  

Other new items from Orange today include a piece of software which is available to all Orange customers which issues alerts when monthly download limits are being reached - in a bid to help customers avoid over-use penalties. If you're an Orange mobile broadband customer and don't already have the software, trot along to www.orange.co.uk/updates to download it. What’s more, Orange is introducing an automatic monthly bill cap which means that from today, customers won't be charged more than £40 per month extra for going over their usage allowance. 

And lastly, in a bid to encourage customers to use the network at off-peak times, the company has launched an 'Early Bird' tariff, offering unlimited mobile broadband use between midnight and 9am; subject of course to fair usage policies. Starting at £13 this one's ideal for night-owls, or anyone else who can do the majority of their browsing when the networks are less busy.

All in all, a nice selection of additions to the total range of mobile broadband options available, giving consumers more choice and a little more peace of mind in terms of data allowances.