As an incentive to attract youngsters to its student bank account, Natwest is handing out £50 vouchers redeemable towards 3 mobile broadband service.

This comes as part of a promotional package which includes an interest-free overdraft as well as reductions on rail fares and £100 off a new Asus laptop. New customers will also be able to receive a Microsoft LifeCam if they sign-up for an account before 31^st October of this year.

Mark Worthington, who heads up NatWest’s student and graduate banking, said that the deal had “evolved in response to what students have told us really matters to them.”

Analyst firm Berg Insight recently published a report which estimated that the number of laptops with mobile broadband connectivity in Europe will increase from the 8.4 million recorded last year to 49 million in 2013, an increase of 34.1% year-on-year.

PC notebooks will have pre-installed mobile broadband technology for use away from the home in addition to a fixed connection. Once the majority of laptops intended for the European market have embedded HSPA/LTE chipsets as standard in the coming three to five years, users will be able to directly insert a SIM card into their laptops for mobile broadband freedom. Having said that, we’re pretty much already there technologically speaking; the plug ‘n’ play Dongles, available from the likes of Orange, T-Mobile and 3 are essentially SIM cards and a USB attachment encased in aesthetically pleasing plastic jackets.

The explosion in mobile broadband technology is likely to put a strain on mobile operators. In terms of volume of data, mobile data traffic already exceeds that of mobile voice traffic.

According to Tobias Ryberg, senior analyst at Berg Insight, serious network investments are needed if mobile operators are to keep up with demand from consumers: “On the one hand [mobile operators] have a highly attractive proposition – a novel mobile service with high ARPU [average revenue per user]. On the other hand, the very popularity of the service stretches the mobile network infrastructure to its utmost limit – threatening to degrade the level of service for all subscribers.”

Vodafone famously shelled out millions to invest in high-speed mobile broadband access, and are now reaping the benefits, currently able to boast the fastest speeds going.

Mobile broadband could become free to use as early as 2009, according to broadband comparison site Top 10 Broadband. In a bid to out-do competition, mobile providers have cut broadband charges dramatically over the last year, to the extent that further price-cuts could render the service free-of-charge anyhow.

According to Jessica McArdle of Top 10 Broadband, “With competition reaching its zenith, it is only a matter of time before mobile broadband modems – dongles – are offered free with mobile phone packages in the same way as ISPs such as TalkTalk offer ‘free’ home broadband with home phone deals”.

At the moment around one in ten people use mobile broadband to get online. However, with faster and more powerful handsets, as well as cheaper monthly price plans, broadband on-the-go is becoming a practical and viable alternative to a fixed connection. Huge price-drops in the mobile broadband market over the past year mean that consumers no longer consider it the luxury they used to. For example, at just £16 a month, Vodafone’s mobile broadband service is 65% cheaper and four times faster that its £45 deal of 2006. Top 10 Broadband lists 3, T-Mobile and Orange as other key providers offering mobile broadband packages which start at £10-£15.

Unsurprisingly, the drive for mobile broadband is coming from younger consumers. A recent study conducted by Sony Ericsson in over 30 countries concluded that 15-24 year olds increasingly expect the same service they experience on the internet to transfer to their mobiles.

“The youth are setting the scene,” said Vishnu Singh, regional manager for the Ericsson Consumer Lab in Southeast Asia. “[They] are now expecting mobile broadband services to be as rich as the Internet”.

Carphone Warehouse are poised to cash in on the rising popularity of mobile broadband services today with the launch of their new free laptop deals. In addition to the same AOLFree Laptop deal currently doing the rounds on this very site, as of today, punters visiting selected Carphone Warehouse stores will be able to sign on the dotted line to qualify for one of six models of free laptops, provided that they also opt in to a broadband package.

Carphone will be setting up separate sections in its high-street stores for The Broadband Shop, an area dedicated to selling mobile broadband services from T-Mobile, Orange, 3, and fixed line from Virgin Media, TalkTalk and AOL Broadband, much like the Virgin Mobile sections set up in certain Zavvi (née Virgin Megastore) outlets. The deal with Virgin will see Carphone being able to flog all four of the Virgin Media services in their own stores; that’s broadband, digital TV, fixed-line and mobile phone services.

Neil Berkett, action chief executive ay Virgin Media said: “By extending our product portfolio in-store and making it simple and easy for customers to sign up, we’re hoping Virgin Media will be at the top of shopping lists.” This mutually beneficial arrangement gives the second and third ranked broadband providers the opportunity to close the gap on market leaders BT.

Carphone head honcho Charles Dunstone believes that the free laptop offer will pay off, especially with younger surfers who want the freedom of mobile broadband: “Our research has shown that for people over 14, having a laptop is becoming more important than having a mobile phone,” says Mr Dunstone. “And they don’t want to wrestle with their siblings and their parents to look at websites like Facebook or YouTube.”

Carphone Warehouse’s new business and multi-channel director Andy Brem said that launch “this is only the start. We are doing with laptops and broadband what we did with mobile phones”.

Leading mobile networks and broadband providers Orange and O2 have finally moved in on the mobile broadband market, following on from T-Mobile, Vodafone and 3.

Both companies are punting mobile surfing to users, allowing them to connect to the net on the move by way of a plug and play USB dongle. Both of the packages offer customers 3GB worth of monthly surfing over their networks, with the O2 packages including unlimited Wi-Fi access via The Cloud’s 7,500 UK hotspots.

O2 Mobile Broadband automatically hooks users up to the fastest connection available – GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA, or Wi-Fi, and the plug and play aspect of the USB dongle makes it super easy to use. The dongle also comes with a stylish LED display panel which indicates what network is being used, so you’ll be able to easily estimate what speed you should be getting. Talking of which, for the moment broadband speeds of O2 Mobile Broadband will be around 1.8Mbps, which O2 plan to accelerate speeds to a faster average of 3.6Mbps this June. Orange Mobile Broadband also comes with speeds of up to 1.8Mbps, although there have been no official noises on speed increases yet. However, Orange has the edge over O2 in terms of cost.

There are two separate price plans available on O2, a £20 a month 18 month contract, which includes the price of the USB dongle, or a rolling monthly package also costing £20 a month, plus a one-off charge for the dongle (£120). Orange, by contrast only have one price plan, and 18-monther which costs users just £15 a month, significantly cheaper over a year and half when compared with the O2 equivalent; the price of the Orange USB dongle is also included in the price.