O2 moves to restore mobile broadband confidence

O2 claims to be doing its bit to appease disgruntled mobile broadband customers by revamping its product pricing and tweaking its feature set.

The mobile giant's move comes in response to research suggesting one in ten mobile broadband users believe they've been mis-sold to.

Core mobile broadband pricing has been reduced to 15 a month for the 3GB package, with those opting for an 18 or 24 month contract also benefiting from a free USB modem.

Those with a large broadband appetite will be able to take advantage of O2's new 10GB package for 30 a month on a two-year contract.

To help calm those left angry and empty pocketed by previously high roaming bills, the mobile giant has also vowed to de-activate international roaming as standard. New customers will instead need to get in touch with O2's customer service if they want to be able to roam abroad. It's at that point that they'll be made aware of how much said roaming is likely to cost them.

"Across the industry there are too many customers whose mobile broadband expectations have been set too high and have then been disappointed, which is a terrible shame given there are loads of people who are having a great time with mobile broadband," said Peter Rampling, O2's marketing director.

"We want to continue to try to set the right expectation so all our mobile broadband customers know what sort of service they are going to get."

A so-called 50-day Happiness Guarantee, an improved in-store and online coverage checker also complement the new line-up.

Maggie Holland

Maggie has been a journalist since 1999, starting her career as an editorial assistant on then-weekly magazine Computing, before working her way up to senior reporter level. In 2006, just weeks before ITPro was launched, Maggie joined Dennis Publishing as a reporter. Having worked her way up to editor of ITPro, she was appointed group editor of CloudPro and ITPro in April 2012. She became the editorial director and took responsibility for ChannelPro, in 2016.

Her areas of particular interest, aside from cloud, include management and C-level issues, the business value of technology, green and environmental issues and careers to name but a few.