Vodafone joins broadband-on-a-USB-stick brigade

Vodafone has expanded its wireless broadband range with a new USB Internet Stick, which lets you access 3G broadband without the hassle of an external modem hanging from your notebook PC. (Rival 3 launched a similar offering back in May.)
Vodafone says that the stick (available in black or white) will self-install using software stored on its 4GB of resident memory, which is a claim I’ll be interested in testing, having just spent the better part of a fortnight trying to get an existing Vodafone USB modem working on a Vista machine. (It also suggests that the unit might not work on a Linux box such as the Eee PC, unlike its predecessor.) Standalone pricing starts from $29.95 a month on a 24-month contract with a 1GB monthly download limit; given Vodafone’s famously elastic approach to contracts, make sure that you get any conditions that are important to you specifically noted in writing before signing up. [Vodafone Mobile Broadband]