Martin Lewis says THESE are the best broadband deals and THIS WEEK is the time to switch
Are you getting the best deal on your broadband?
Do you find your current broadband service is hit and miss, as is what you pay for it? Then doubtless you'll want to hear all about Martin Lewis' top new broadband deals, announced on Monday's This Morning.
'The whole thing about cheap broadband is that's it's all about counting on promo deals,' Martin told hosts Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford on the morning show. 'These promotional deals tend to be on for a week or ten days – not much longer – and it's all about the incentives they get and that's how you bring the price down.'
'And it just so happens, this week, that we have a confluence of different deals all happening at the same time.'
'Can you break your contract with someone else if a deal is about,' asks Eamonn.
'Well if you're in contract, no,' says Martin, 'but the vast, vast majority of people are out of contract.'
'The simple rule for most is that if you've had your broadband and line longer than a year then you're probably out of contract. Though you should, of course, check that. But swathes of the country are overpaying on this.
'Now it's worth remembering when we are talking about the cost, when we say broadband, invariably in almost every case you're going to have to have a phone line with it. The two are together so I'm going to talk about combined pricing for the both,' Martin continues.
Standard broadband rates
'And let me just give you what the standard prices are with the big boys and girls – the big companies.'
- BT, £45 a month standard – that's £540 a year. If you've got fibre it would be £620 a year.
- Sky, £330 standard, £444 if you've got fibre.
- Talk Talk, £360 standard, £442 on fibre.
- Virgin, £528 a year for fibre.
As Martin says, 'it's a big bill'. But happily, you can get broadband 'way, way cheaper' than the standard packages, according to Martin.
Martin Lewis' best broadband deals
'So, these promo deals I'm talking about, generally, are not available direct,' Martin continues. 'You can't go to the companies I'm going to mention and get them. You have to go via comparison sites, and different ones are available on different comparison sites so it's about knowing what you're doing.'
'Most of them include something like a £50 Amazon voucher or a £100 M&S voucher. So the price that I'm going to give you factors that in over the contract length, as if you would have spent in that store anyway.'
'They are also postcode depended. Somewhere between 50 and 90 per cent of the population can ge them – not everybody can.'
Here are the headline deals Martin recommends.
1. Post Office
Standard broadband, 11Mbps speed, over 12 months, includes a £50 Amazon voucher.
£11.74 a month (£15.90 a month when value of Amazon voucher not included), including broadband and line rental. £140.88 a year.
Find details of this deal at Broadband Genie
2. Vodafone
Fibre broadband, 35Mbps speed, over 18 months, includes a £75 Amazon, Currys PC World, John Lewis or M&S voucher, and an Amazon Echo Plus speaker (worth £140).
£17.39 a month (£21 a month when value of voucher isn't taken into account). £208.68 a year.
Find details of this deal at Confused.com
3. Virgin Media
Super-Fast Fibre broadband, 108Mbps speed, over 12 months, includes a £75 bill credit. Available until Thursday 25th July 2019 only.
£18.75 a month (£25 a month when bill credit isn't taken into a account). £225 a year
Find details of this deal at Money Saving Expert
'What's also interesting is that in the old days, the advertised speed – up until May 28th 2018 – was an 'up to' speed, which meant that only 10 per cent of people needed to get the speed advertised,' says Martin.
'But then they changed the rules – now it's an average speed. 50 per cent of people need to get the average speed and they have to get it at between 8 and 10pm at night, which is prime time.'
'Essentially, the speeds promised nw are much closer to what they actually are.'
Will you be signing up to a new deal?
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Amy Cutmore is an experienced interiors editor and writer, who has worked on titles including Ideal Home, Homes & Gardens, LivingEtc, Real Homes, GardeningEtc, Top Ten Reviews and Country Life. And she's a winner of the PPA's Digital Content Leader of the Year. A homes journalist for two decades, she has a strong background in technology and appliances, and has a small portfolio of rental properties, so can offer advice to renters and rentees, alike.
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