Comparison Table
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Best Broadband Deals for December 2008
With Christmas coming up there are some great deals to be had. There is also the 2.5% VAT reduction that most providers are passing on to help save you a little bit extra. This makes it even easier to find a great broadband deal. In this article I'm going to go through the current top 5, broadband deals and why I am recommending them.
As was the case earlier in the year, if you've got your cable subscription, phone line and broadband with different providers you'll be paying over the odds. Most of the big companies, such as Virgin Media and Sky will offer you a discount if you bundle all or some of their services together.
If you work out the prices of best broadband deals where you don't combine with another service it generally works out more expensive than if you had combined.
This month's best broadband deal is from O2. You have to buy call time (or have a contract phone with them) but the minium top up payments and the broadband price is still cheaper than other companies broadband only price!
Depending on what sort of other services you use, you may be more interested in a particular section of this article. I've split the top 5 broadband deals into 3 categories:
1 – Mobile phone and Broadband deals
2 – Landline phone and Broadband deals
3 – TV, Landline phone and Broadband deals.
Best Bundles:
Mobile Phone + Broadband:
O2 – Standard - £7.34/month for all O2 customers (£12.34 for non O2 customers) - Best Price
Combined Cost: £128.08 (assuming you make the minium pay as you go phone top ups for the discount which is £10 credit every 3 months)
This is a great deal for anyone who already uses O2 for their mobile, either with a contract of pay as you go mobile. I wouldn't pay the non-O2 customer price, but if you're happy to use O2's mobile service you do get a good deal. If you have a pay as you go phone with them you only have to top up £10 once every 3 months. For the money you get a decent 8mbps connection with an unlimited usage. An O2 Wireless Box II is also included which will make getting connected very easy.
O2 give you up to 10 email addresses with this package, 100 web texts and free 24/7 UK customer service.
Orange – Starter – Free/month with any pay monthly plan.
Combined Cost: £176.16 assuming cheapest pay monthly plan + FREE self-installation
If you have a pay monthly phone contract with Orange then did you know you could get free 8mbps broadband, with a large 10GB download limit? If you're with them, or looking for a new mobile contract it's definitly one to keep in mind. Orange's cheapest pay monthly plan locks you in for 24 months and costs £14.68 a month. This gives you 100 anytimes minutes and unlimited texts each month.
In the coming month or two Orange will be passing on the VAT savings so the total cost will hopefully become a little bit cheaper.
Landline + Broadband:
AOL Broadband – Wireless - £4.99/month (£14.99 after first 3 months) with FREE AOL Talk Unlimited.
Combined Cost: £149.88 + Free installation
This deal from
AOL gives you a decent 8mbps connection with a 10GB Usage. The price includes a wireless router, 24/7 online help, free technical support when using an AOL talk line and no installation fee!
With
AOL's Wireless package you can also sign up to their Talk Unlimited plan for free. With this plan you can phone any landline for as long as you like for free (no 60 minute limit like other providers!). AOL lets you keep your telephone number and you will have no break in service! They have decent rates to abroad (less than equivilant BT package). The only thing which is slightly more expensive is phoning mobile phones in the evening. BT charges 5p a minute, where as AOL will charge you 5.25p a minute – so it's not really something to worry about!
Virgin Media – Size:M - £4.50/month when taken out with a £11/month phone line.
Combined Cost: £186 + £30 installation fee.
This is Virgin Media's best deal, the price for both the phone line and broadband and they do not bump prices up after 3 months or any similar technique that other companies use to obscure the real cost.
For the money you get a decent 2MB download speed and no download limit. This is enough to download a music track in around 20 seconds. Virgin Media supply all broadband users with the PCguard security software. This includes anti-virus, a firewall and a pop up blocker. Virgin supplys the modem but charges extra if you'd like to buy a wireless router.
The phone line comes with unlimited weekend landline calls (you do have to redial every 60 minutes to avoid being billed). This means that not only are you getting a good deal on the broadband, you are also getting some nice perks with the phone line.
TV + Phone + Broadband:
Sky – Base – FREE/month when you have a Sky TV and Talk (From £17/month). - Best Combination Deal
Combined Cost: £204 + £30 installation fee.
The first thing I feel I must say is though the price may not seem like a deal, take into the fact that if you're a Sky subscriber you can use Sky Talk for free (free landlines calls in the evening and weekend for first hour and 4p/minute landline daytime) or £5 a month for unlimited all time phone calls. You also get Sky TV with one package (£17/month) which makes the 'base' broadband package free.
This means for £18 a year more than Virgin Media's plan you also get Sky TV for a year. That's a fantastic deal.
Sky's Base broadband package has a 2MB download speed and you're limited to 2Gb download limit a month. Though this may not sound like much, especially compared to all the 'unlimited' offers avalible it is a pretty substatial amount for most users. If you were just to download music with it, you could download 409 music tracks* and still have a little left over! That's 34, 12 track albums and with a 2MB speed it would only take 20 seconds a track. Not sounding so small now is it?
If all you use the internet for is a bit of internet browsing and sending a emails then this plan is fantastic for you! Sky include their £50 wireless router, for free as well as offering you 10 sky email addresses, 24/7 support and 12 months of McAfee's internet security suite (worth £49.99).
As an added incentive you can also get £50 worth of M&S vouchers, for free, when signing up to Sky...this could help a little bit with Christmas shopping!
*5MB per music track
Hopefully this article has helped you find an appropriate ISP. I have mainly focused on the lighter, more affordable packages so if you're into downloading music, photos, listening to internet radio, watching internet television, online gaming and so on take a look at our “unlimited usage” page.
Feel free to check out our broadband comparision table to check a wide range of broadband deals or use it to compare many of the top, UK broadband suppliers.
David Macfarlane, Internet Consultant, Future in Sites Ltd.
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