Just aquired my first notebook, want to use it mainly for email & browsing internet, viewing Youtube & iView, films sometimes. Unsure how many GB I'd need for the cheapest wire-free plan possible? And can I use also use the dongle for my desktop?

Your first laptop, how exciting! Look, you are a little off-track in terms of the best broadband option for your needs. I’ll help you out. As you want to watch ABC iView, movies and YouTube videos, your best bet will be to go for an ADSL2+ broadband connection, using an ADSL2+ Wi-Fi modem. The Wi-Fi modem will create a wireless network within your home that all computers, both laptops and desktops with wireless cards, can access. In most city areas, ADSL2+ is the fastest form of broadband you can get, so you’ll never have to wait for iView to load up. Just click on the video and it will stream instantaneously. ADSL2+ plans have a huge amount of data included, and are a very stable connection (as it’s on your telephone landline). These factors of speed, stability and data make the ADSL2+ option a much better choice than mobile wireless broadband, which you mention in your query. Mobile wireless broadband works off of the mobile phone towers, and is generally slower (your TV show may stop halfway through to buffer), less stable (there are often drop-outs interrupting your program), and you get much less data, so you won’t be able to watch many shows before you reach your monthly quota, thus receiving either a slower speed or excess usage charges. ADSL2+ is also a lot cheaper than mobile wireless broadband. I checked the phone number you provided and you live near the South Oakleigh phone exchange. Just to get an example for you I checked with TPG, and they can provide you with ADSL2+ or an ADSL2+ home phone bundle. You can even get TPG's unlimited ADSL2+ plans. Let’s do some price comparisons: You could get the TPG ADSL2+ home phone bundle for $19.99 per month with 100GB, split 30 GB in peak time and 70GB in off-peak when bundled with TPG’s $30 landline rental. This is a total of $49.99. On the other side of the coin, the best mobile wireless plan around for heavier users (those who watch internet TV etc.) is probably Vodafone’s 10GB plan for $49.00 per month. First you need to find out if you can get coverage where you live, and if you can, 10GB is only one tenth of 100GB, but for the same price. ADSL2+ runs at speeds of up to 24,000kbps, while an average mobile wireless speed sits around 1,500kbps, although at peak times of the day (E.G. 6pm after work) the speed can decrease dramatically if a large amount of people are using the same mobile tower concurrently. Creating a Wi-Fi network within the home also saves you from having to buy two separate USB dongles in order to use both your laptop and desktop at the same time. I hope this helps!