Dan Howdle | September 16th, 2024
Hard to believe, but it's September already so it's time for our monthly look at what we think are currently the best broadband deals out there. With many people returning to work and school after the summer, broadband providers often start thinking about what they can offer to tempt new customers, so we expect to be updating this page quite a lot over the next few weeks.
Well, we've featured this deal previously, but over all, we still think this deserves our top ranking. If you can get it, that is. To find out try our postcode checker.
Virgin Media's no frills M125 broadband deal continues to secure our recommendation as we think that it's a really good balance of adequate speed and a reasonable price from a premium provider. Plus, of course there's a recently increased £65 bill credit which will mean you'll pay nothing for the first two months, and even the third month will be heavily discounted.
Whilst technically speaking this is Virgin Media's lowest speed package (although they do still sometimes offer their M50 deal), we still maintain that this is probably fast enough for most users. In the real world you should be seeing average speeds of about 132Mbps, which is typical of Virgin Media whose package names often understate the speeds you're likely to get. Plus of course, they're very much a top-shelf provider, and there are a lot of optional extras you'll be able to choose from should you feel the need in future.
In our book, 'value' doesn't necessarily equate with 'cheapest'. So the package we focus on here is more about how much you could get for the money, rather than just the lowest cost. And we think this deal offers an awful lot considering the monthly cost.
Previously branded as Sky Ultrafast Plus, Sky's Full Fibre 500 package has extremely fast average download speeds of 500Mbps, but is of course only available to properties who can access full fibre. However, that's getting on for about two thirds of UK households now, so if you are in that lucky majority we think this is a deal worthy of serious consideration. And it's certainly one the best value pound per pound deals available anywhere. In addition to those blistering download speeds, you'll see uploads of about 60Mbps, a figure most people would have considered to be a pretty fast download speed until quite recently. For that you'll pay £33 per month per month over a 24 month contract, plus Sky have just further increased the offer to a £90 gift card, so you can treat yourself to something special.
We think that's excellent value, and considering it's from Sky, you'll also have a lots of upgrade options should you consider bundling in any TV or phone services too.
This is simple – what is the cheapest, generally available broadband deal we can find in the UK right now. And the good news is that these days, 'cheap' doesn't even have to mean 'slow'. Most providers don't even offer the old 10Mbps ADSL speeds any more, and even where they do they're often not actually that cheap any more anyway.
So, once again, we find that NOW broadband continue to offer the cheapest broadband deal out there. For £22 per month per month you'll see download speeds of around 63Mbps, and uploads of about 19Mbps. But the insider secret here is that for many households NOW would much rather sell you their latest Full Fibre 75 package at the same price, upgrading your downloads speeds to 76Mbps (with a minimum speed guarantee of 50Mbps). Neither package carries any extra charges for equipment, delivery or connection, although like its parent company Sky, NOW Broadband do request a small £5 upfront fee which is later refunded against your first bill.
All in all, if you're just looking for the bottom-line cheapest deal out there, we think this is the package for you. It's not complicated by any bill credits or free gifts, it's just a plain and simple old-fashioned low price from this excellent budget provider. And, like it's parent company, you'll find there are a number of TV 'memberships' you can join if you want something extra down the line.
'Full fibre' is basically just what the name suggests. It's broadband delivered to your home entirely via fibre optics, which until recently simply wasn't available to most of the UK's broadband customers. There are no weak links in the form of copper cables and suchlike, so speeds of up to 1000Mbps (or 1Gbps) and even higher are now available to about two thirds of UK properties. And that's growing all the time. So here we'll make our recommendation of what we think is the best full fibre deal out there at the moment.
It's not often that we feature a Vodafone product in these monthly updates. But right now, we think that Vodafone's Full Fibre 500 deal is a great choice. Considering the high speed and the monthly cost, it's terrific value right now. There's no free gift, but if you're an existing Vodafone mobile customer there are usually incentives on offer. Right now that's a free Amazon Echo Show 5, and the possibility of a £2 reduction on your monthly bill. But even if you're new to Vodafone, you're getting a lot for your money here. You'll see downloads averaging at 500Mbps, with uploads of about 68Mbps (the guaranteed download speed is a minimum of 250Mbps). They're the kind of numbers that'll give even the very busiest households enough bandwidth, with room to spare.
You might not really need speeds as high as this, but since the price is so reasonable, for a lot of people (particularly those who work from home or have lots of gaming and streaming requirements) just having that extra head-room can be reassuring.
Here we look at what we think is currently the best deal bundling broadband and TV services. In all honestly, we're normally more likely to focus on a Sky package, simply because they generally offer the best TV subscription service in the country, especially since the introduction of its satellite dish-free Sky Stream service. However, right now we think one of the best deals comes from Sky's main rival, BT.
For a very limited time only, BT is offering it's almost-top-of-the-range Full Fibre 500 broadband bundled with it's Full Works TV package, at a heavily reduced price of £25 for the first three months. That means that if you pick this up this week, you'll save £279. You'll get access to over 110 channels, including Sky Atlantic, Sky Max and more with NOW Entertainment and NOW Cinema. All four TNT Sports channels and 12 Sky Sports channels, including the Premier League, F1 and more. There's also TNT Sports HD (what used to be BT Sport), plus Sky Sports HD from NOW Boost, not forgetting Eurosport 1 and 2. Obviously you'll get all the free-to-air channels, and a recordable TV box. Finally there's a standard Netflix plan, which allows you to watch on two devices in HD and discovery+ Premium.
So, like the Virgin Media offer we featured last week, that's basically everything you could really need, all included in one single package. Plus, there are no setup or delivery fees, which saves you another £31.99. If you are interested in the deal, be quick as we expect it to be withdrawn from the market at midnight on the 26nd September.
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Dan Howdle, Broadband and mobile expert
We know it can be difficult choosing the right deal or broadband provider. This broadband comparison help section contains useful information and advice for making your next broadband purchase easy and stress-free. There are several things to think about when looking for a broadband deal that suits your household, and we'll get onto those. First though, let's talk a bit about why you should switch broadband deals.
There are a wide variety of reasons you might want to switch your broadband provider. Being upset with your existing provider is quite common, but here let's take a look not at the reasons you might want to, but the reasons why you should:
Before choosing a new broadband provider and deal, it helps to understand what you need exactly. Understanding exactly what you need massively narrows down the packages and providers you have to consider. Here are the things you should know before looking for a new broadband package:
Probably the most important factor at the moment when choosing a broadband deal is your budget. If you’re currently in a contract, your provider may hike the monthly cost up once the fixed-term ends. For this reason, Ofcom made it compulsory for providers to remind you when your contract is ending, so you’ll have time to find a better deal. Most customers are very surprised to find out they can get better, faster broadband for less than they are currently paying but that is the case for most customers.
Broadly, the faster the download speed, the better your experience, but this has limits. For example, most households will notice a big difference switching from, say, 35Mbps to 100Mbps. However, it's a case of diminishing returns, where all but the most download-addicted gamer households would notice the jump from 300Mbps to 900Mbps. All the daily stuff you do with your broadband is small beer to those sorts of speeds – like lobbing a golf ball down a motorway tunnel. There's just a lot of room to spare.
Choosing a speed that’s fast enough, but isn’t faster than you need, is the best way of making sure you don’t pay over the odds, and a cheap deal is a false economy if it doesn’t provide the speed your household needs. Broadly speaking, we recommend at least 61Mbps for your average household, and homes full of gamers and streamers should opt for more. Here's an easy-to-follow overview, and if you want to really get into understanding your speed needs, we also have a full guide.
Broadband users | Type of broadband | Speeds |
---|---|---|
1-2 people | ADSL or Fibre | 10-60Mbps |
3-4 people | Fibre or Full Fibre | 100-300Mbps |
5+ people | Full Fibre | 150-500Mbps |
Gamers or streamers | Full Fibre | 300-1Gbps or more |
See our What broadband speed do I need? guide for full details.
Although a few providers offer monthly rolling ‘cancel anytime’ contracts, most deals are offered as 12, 18, or 24 month contracts, with 24 months, sadly, becoming increasingly common. Broadly speaking, if you’re happy to sign up for a longer period, you’ll often enjoy a lower monthly price, and it's even more true that opting for a one-month, rolling contract deal is going to cost you a lot more per month than a contract deal because a provider like NOW Broadband has to offset the cost to them for providing you a router and getting you set up for what may turn out to be just one month's service.
Keep in mind some providers add other costs, and these can offset any savings you make with a lower monthly price. These typically cover things like delivery of a router, installation charges, or activation fees. If you don’t want to pay any extra costs (upfront or otherwise), you should set the filter in the comparison table to not show deals that have them.
If you see up-front costs for packages from a particular provider, please note that these are rarely, if ever, perennial, and chances are if you pop back in a week or two they won't be charging it anymore. Some providers – especially BT and Sky – flit frequently between charging a set-up fee and not.
Many broadband packages include additional services like landline phone call plans, TV subscriptions, and even mobile phone contracts. A broadband and phone deal, or a broadband and TV bundle deal, will save you money – sometimes a lot of money – along with offering the convenience of dealing with one provider from all your services. The recent trend of adding Netflix for free with broadband and TV bundles only increases the money you can save.
To sweeten deals, many providers offer rewards and incentives like cashback, bill credits, shopping vouchers or other free gifts. While they can make a package seem more enticing, they shouldn’t always form the basis of your decision when choosing which option you want. They’re usually limited-time offers – so you may feel pressured to buy before you’re ready. On the other hand, they can be represent great value and be well worth grabbing while you can! Just be sure and calculate what that reward is worth versus similar packages from other providers that, despite not reward, may work out cheaper in the long run.
Cable.co.uk makes it easy for you to compare broadband deals. Use the drop down to sort by price, speed or most popular and then filter based on what really matters to you. It’s that simple.
The tools on this page allow you to select and filter by all of the criteria we've talked about thus far. If you're finding it confusing though, no problem. Here are some pointers:
Of course, not everyone comes into their search knowing what speed they need. Don't worry! We have a tool that'll help you find out. Just hit 'Get started' below:
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Once you've chosen a new broadband deal you'll receive some instructions from your new provider. These will include:
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