O2 Broadband has just announced yet another sizzling summer deal. All those who sign up for any of the O2 Home Broadband packages throughout July will get the first two months of their broadband service free. This provides a saving of up to £44 over the first year of service, should you sign up for the O2 Broadband Pro package and you are not an O2 Mobile customer.

This offer is also available to customers outside the O2 network, who can sign up for O2 Access Broadband, which provides the same speed and usage cap as O2 Standard Broadband (up to 8Mbps, Unlimited) for a slightly increased monthly cost.

It’s been a busy few weeks for O2, who on Monday announced a Wi-Fi tie-in with BT Broadband which sees O2 Mobile Broadband customers able to make use of 3,000 BT Openzone Wi-Fi points. In the week previous, O2 halved the cost of Mobile Broadband dongles on Pay As You Go.

O2 has announced a new partnership with BT Broadband which sees O2 Mobile Broadband customers able to hook up to an additional 3,000 BT Wi-Fi Hotspots. As well as this, O2 Mobile Broadband punters will be able to keep an eye on the amount of data they’re using thanks to new software.

This new software will notify you when 75%, 90% and 100% of your data allowance has been reached, so you don’t stray over your limit and end up saddled with extra charges.

Last week saw O2 slashing the cost of its Mobile Broadband dongles on Pay As You Go. With O2 Mobile Broadband Pay As You Go, you can chose to sign up for daily, weekly and monthly packages, all of which include unlimited Wi-Fi.

Back in April, BT installed Wi-Fi in over 600 branches of Starbucks throughout the UK and the Republic of Ireland. It was announced shortly after that iPhone owners would be able to make use of BT’s Wi-Fi points in Starbucks for free as well, with O2 Mobile Broadband customers to follow in the summer.

O2 has just slashed the connection cost of its Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband service in half. The USB Modem E160 dongle, normally priced £29.34 is now available for £14.97 until Monday the 29th of June. The mobile broadband dongle works with both PCs and Macs, offers plug and play installation and top connection speeds of 3.6Mbps.

As well as this, O2 Mobile Broadband customers on this PAYG offering can take advantage of different daily, weekly and monthly tariffs. The daily tariff comes with a data allowance of 500MB, and unlimited Wi-Fi access at any of the 5,000 UK hotspots operated by The Cloud.

The weekly offering provides 1GB for £7.50, with the monthly offering providing 3GB for £15. Again, both of these offerings provide unlimited Cloud Wi-Fi access.

3 has just launched a new 30 day rolling SIM-only mobile broadband deal which costs £15 a month provides 5GB data, and access to the net at top speeds of 3.6Mbps.

This is perfect for those who don’t want to commit to a long-term contract, but will want to be able to connect at odd months throughout the year, and get better value for money that Pay As You Go. As with SIM-only plans seen on mobile phones, customer only need to give 30 days notice to cancel the contract, so there’s no long term obligation.

This SIM-only mobile broadband package can also be bought with a USB modem, for those who don’t have a spare dongle lying around. The Huawei MF627, E156g and E1550 are all available for £19.99 each.

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Following on from both BT and O2 announcing the rollout of their Wi-Fi services in every Starbucks coffee house in the UK and Ireland, T-Mobile have just confirmed that they have teamed up with Virgin Trains to unroll their HotSpot Wi-Fi service onto Virgin’s tilting Pendolino trains. Apparently, the mobile internet connections work everywhere on the rail network, even when a train passes through a tunnel.

This is great news for T-Mobile Mobile Broadband pay monthly customers who get unlimited HotSpot Wi-Fi bundled with their plans already. The service is also free to Virgin Trains customers who upgrade to First Class.

Non-T-Mobile and standard class customers however can sign up for access for an hour, which sets you back £5, or for a whole 24 hours, which costs £10.

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You want some complimentary Wi-Fi to go with your iPhone and vanilla low carb mocha? Well thanks to O2 and BT Broadband you can.

Further to the announcement that all Starbucks outlets across the UK and Ireland are to be fully furnished with Wi-Fi networks courtesy of BT Openzone comes the news that iPhone owners and O2 Mobile Broadband customers will also be able to surf for free whilst slurping a skinny latte.

As of now, iPhone owners can hop on to the internet using a Starbucks/BT Openzone connection for free, whilst O2 Mobile Broadband customers will be able to surf gratis from a yet to be specified date in the summer - more on this as and when we hear it.

Until then, O2 Mobile Broadband customers can sign up for access to BT Openzone hot spots for £7.34 a month.

The good news for iPhone owners is that you can now sit and sip with your iPhone and get back to that novel you’ve been working on, after installing the ‘WriteBook’ app…

The Samsung NC10 Mini-Laptop has been voted best mini laptop on the market in a review on Channel 5’s Gadget Show. The notebook is currently available free on the 3GB and 10GB 24 Month O2 Mobile Broadband contracts.

During the show, ITV newsreader Julie Etchingham tested three mini laptops - the Acer Eee PC 1000H, Acer Aspire One D150, and the Samsung NC10 - in the hope of finding one that she could use on the move. Though all three laptops were highly portable, the Samsung won Julie’s vote of confidence due to its larger 10.2″ display, easy to operate track pad and well-spaced keyboard. The screen also responded well to various light conditions, including harsh sunlight.

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O2 have got in on the mobile broadband laptop act. O2 are giving away a Samsung NC10 Mini-Laptop FREE to any customer who signs up for O2 Mobile Broadband for 24 months.

The Samsung NC10 - worth around £300 - comes with Windows XP, McAfee Virus Scan, and a 160GB hard drive. A lightweight neoprene slipcase (pictured) which is black with a blue edging, echoing the O2 Mobile Broadband colour scheme, is also included.

The Samsung NC10 is available free to those who sign up for either the 3GB or 10GB 24 Month plan, for £29.38 and £39.15 a month respectively. The cost of the O2 E169 USB Modem is included in the contract.

Vodafone and O2 have agreed on a deal which will see the two mobile operators merging their mobile networks, in order to improve mobile phone reception across the country, and, more importantly, improve the availability and quality of mobile broadband services.

Matthew Key, chief executive of O2 owners Telefonica Europe said: “This goes some way to ‘future proofing’ the network,” adding that “the current economic situation was a catalyst.”

The merging of the networks will see the operators saving hundreds of millions of pounds over the next few years, and could, in theory, lead to the eventual rollout of mobile broadband services comparable to fixed-line connections in terms of speed and reliability, in accordance with Lord Carter’s Digital Britain proposals.

This follows in the footsteps of a deal done in December 2007 between 3 and T-Mobile. The two operators share HSDPA networks and are starting to decommission masts, with T-Mobile already noticing savings, costs, freeing up money that can be invested.

In Spain, a joint venture between Vodafone and Orange saw the two providers able to bring much faster services to rural areas, by reducing the number of base stations needed, thereby reducing the cost of running and maintenance.

Virgin Media came out on top in a recent survey on mobile broadband products by independent consumer group Which? who tested each of the provider’s products to see if the much advertised plug and play aspect of mobile broadband set up really was as easy as that.

Providers were tested on usability, customer service, ease of set up, speed and connection, and how easy it was to cancel.

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