The following are our five best tips for choosing broadband for your new home.
Research the different broadband services that are available
The speed of broadband is dictated by the infrastructure that is nearby. You might discover that at your old house only ASDL was available (which only reached maximum speeds of around 16Mb), but your new house might have access to superfast cable or fiber optic internet.
Check out Virgin Media to see if there is cable available in your area or with BT to see if there is a fiber connection available to you. With BT or one of its resellers, this might mean you could get as high as a 76Mb connection and with Virgin 120Mb.
Also, SamKnows.com has tools you can use to find out what is available for your new place. It will tell you what is available, including the specific ISPs, for the area.
Consider switching to a different provider
Even if a significantly fast connection is not available if you sign up with a new provider instead of having your existing connection migrated, it can enable you to take full advantage of any new customer offers that are available. These frequently include extras like free shopping vouchers and free service for 6 to 12 months.
The only thing that you need to check before you sign with a different provider is that there is no cancellation fee you are liable for due to terminating your current contract.
You can also pretend to cancel even if you aren’t intending on switching to see if they will offer a better deal to you. A majority of ISPs when you tell them you want to switch will forward you over to their retention department that frequently can offer better rates to you.
Sign up for a bundle package
When you move to a new home, it is a good time to consider all of your monthly expenses and see where some reductions can be made. One good way to do that is to choose a TV, phone and broadband bundle.
When you get all of those services from the same company, it can end up being a lot fewer expenses, and offer you some other fringe benefits as well, like Sky broadband and TV customers get free Wi-Fi in the UK in addition to having access to their Anytime+ on-demand service.
That doesn’t apply only to home phones. O2 mobile users enjoy low O2 broadband prices and T-Mobile, and Orange customers get very inexpensive Orange home broadband. However, comparing has helped in the past, and many will say they got a great deal on broadband when they did so.
Upgrade the wiring in your home
If you discover that your broadband speeds are a lot slower than you were expecting but your ISP informs you that no problems are indicated from their checks, then your internal wiring might be causing the problem.
Poorly fitted or old equipment can significantly impact your broadband service’s quality. Have an engineer come out to check to make sure your wiring is working properly and has a recent master socket.
If you are carrying out improvements already, then you can budget a bit more to get this done in addition to the other work. That way it won’t cause any more disruption.