Home broadband is viewed as a musthave utility rather than a luxury, but finding the best deal for a good price isn’t always easy and even comparison sites need careful use.
The Technology
The first step is to see what forms of broadband are available in your street as this will affect your ability to shop around. Broadly speaking you have three options.
- Telephone lines The first is broadband through telephone lines. This usually involves BT’s Openreach network, regardless of your actual provider.
The big variable here is whether you have access to fullfibre (also called fibre to the home), which means you have a direct fibre optic cable connection to the network. This allows considerably faster speeds than if you have to rely on copper cables between your home and a cabinet that will be in or near your street. If you’re in this position, it’s worth checking the Openreach site to see if and when upgrades are planned in your street. If full fibre is coming soon, you may want to think twice about committing to a longterm contract at a slower speed. - Cable The second option is cable internet, with Virgin Internet being the leading provider. If you have both fullfibre and cable available at your home, you’re in a great position to shop around and even haggle on pricing.
- Mobile – Finally, your home may be covered by a reliable 5G signal. If so, it’s worth considering mobile broadband. Unlike most 4G offerings, 5G packages may be fast and reliable enough to be a viable alternative, particularly with some providers having no usage limits.
Pricing
When comparing prices across different providers and types of broadband, you’ll often have to crunch the numbers to account for setup costs, installation fees, and bonuses such as money-off vouchers. Independent comparison sites can be useful here but check carefully when they include the effects of vouchers and other benefits. Think whether you would have spent money at the relevant shop or site anyway and be ready to go through a degree of hassle and administration to claim any voucher. Unfortunately, broadband isn’t an area where you can simply pick a deal and forget about it. Many providers don’t reward loyalty and you may find prices increase regularly, or that you don’t get offered higher speeds or lower prices available to new customers. You’ll need to be prepared to switch to another provider for the best deal. You’ll also be in the best posion to haggle on any price increases if you not only threaten to leave your provider but are prepared to follow through on the threat.
The Switching Process
The good news is that switching between providers that both use the Openreach network is relatively simple. In fact, you only need to tell the new company and they will take care of the logistics including cancelling your current contract. (You may have to pay a fee if you are still in a fixed-term deal.) Usually, you won’t need an engineer visit and your service should be interrupted for a couple of hours at most. Switching to or from Virgin or other cable companies can be a little more complex as you’ll need to work with both sides. You may want to leave a little overlap between ending one contract and starting the other. This will reduce the risk of being without service for too long.
Going to or from mobile broadband should be very straight-forward and you may even want to try a onemonth contract with a mobile provider (which usually costs a little more than with a longterm deal) before deciding to cancel your existing service. If you do this, make sure to switch off your old WiFi router to avoid any interference with the mobile router while you’re tesng the speed and reliability.
Social Tariff
If you are receiving benefits such as universal credit or jobseeker’s allowance, you may be eligible for a lowcost “social tariff”. The prices, requirements and availability vary significantly between providers, so you’ll need to check the details. Commonly you’ll pay between £15 and £20 and get a lower speed package, though this can be 50Mbps or more with some providers.
