The UK may be teetering on the brink of a price war over mobile broadband, as Orange UK launched a monthly tariff for £5.

Existing Orange customers, both on contract and prepay tariffs, can sign up for an 18-month contract package for £5 a month, giving them 500MB of data and speeds of 3.6Mbps. The package also includes a free Huawei E160e USB dongle in either black, white or pink.

The mobile operator also introduced three 12 month tariffs geared towards users who access the internet in the wee hours, early morning commuters, or consumers who leave their downloads running overnight.

The Early Bird tariffs provide unlimited mobile broadband between midnight and 9am in addition to a standard data allowance of either 1GB, 3GB or 10GB, for £13, £18 or £28 per month.

Orange is introducing an automatic monthly bill cap which means that mobile broadband customers will not be charged more than an extra £40 a month if they accidentally go over their monthly data allowance whilst using their dongle in the UK, helping users to avoid bill shock from mobile broadband usage.

Orange’s offering will go up against disruptive underdog 3 UK’s low commitment offering pitching 15GB for £15 per month.