Orange has announced that it will offer existing customers a mobile broadband package which will cost less than £5 a month, fuelling a potential price war in the UK mobile broadband market.
For £4.89 per month, on an 18-month contract, existing Orange mobile and home broadband customers will be able to access to the Orange Internet Everywhere service, which comes with a usage allowance of 500MB and download speeds of up to 3.6mbps. As part of the package, customers will also receive a free Huawei E160e dongle.
Orange has also announced three 'Early Bird' tariffs starting at £12.72 per month on 12-month contracts. The tariffs provide customers with unlimited mobile broadband between midnight and 9am in addition to their standard data allowance of 1GB, 3GB or 10GB. It is also launching new software to alert customers when they are approaching their usage threshold. The service is open to all new and existing Orange mobile broadband customers and can be downloaded for free from the Orange website.
An automatic monthly bill cap is also being introduced by Orange which means that all Orange mobile broadband customers will not be charged more than an additional £40 a month if they go over their data allowance while using their dongle in the UK.