Crave Talk: Which 'free' broadband ISP is best?
Tags: plan, package, international, mobile phone
There's been a flurry of Internet service providers (ISPs) offering 'free' broadband over recent months. Carphone Warehouse's TalkTalk was the first to lay down the gauntlet, quickly followed by Orange, BSkyB and more recently Namesco.
More ISPs are likely to follow suit, but in the meantime we thought we'd look into which of these services is worth investing in and just how 'free' they actually are.
So-called free broadband ISPs aren't actually free. To qualify you'll usually need to pay a monthly fee for an accompanying service such as a mobile phone, digital television or a landline talk plan. How much you'll end up spending depends on the individual ISP, but it can be confusing, particularly when you factor in whether you actually need the accompanying services. Here we'll outline what you get for your money.
TalkTalk
The Carphone Warehouse's landline telephone business was the first to delve into the free broadband market. Unsurprisingly, its broadband service is heavily linked to its phone service: to qualify you'll need to subscribe to the Talk3 or Talk3 International calling plans, which cost £8.99 and £9.99 per month respectively, plus the (minimum) £11 you already pay to BT for line rental. There's also a £29.99 installation fee. For your money you'll get an 8Mb service with a high 40GB usage allowance, but you'll be tied into the contract for 18 months.
TalkTalk is the priciest of the free broadband services, but it could be the best value for those who make lots of telephone calls. You get an unlimited number of calls to local and national UK landline numbers at any time of the day for up to 70 minutes at a time. The Talk3 International plan gives you unlimited international landline calls to 28 mainland countries worldwide. At its cheapest, TalkTalk's free broadband services comes to a total of £407.81 over the 18 months you're tied to the service.
Orange
Following Orange's acquisition of Wanadoo, the company has launched a free broadband service to its existing mobile phone customers that pay in excess of £30 per month. The broadband package is equivalent to the one that previously cost £17.99 per month from Wanadoo. It's an 8Mb service, though it has a rather low usage allowance of 2GB per month. To its credit, there's no installation fee, and you also get a free Wi-Fi-ready Orange Livebox that acts as a broadband modem and router.
The cheapest deal we could find was the £30 per month Canary plan, which gives you 325 anytime minutes, 150 texts and 300 evening and weekend minutes. The total price over Orange's 18-month minimum contract period comes to £360 -- less than TalkTalk's £407.81, but without the benefit of international calls, and with a smaller usage allowance.
BSkyB
Sky's free broadband offer is tied heavily to its television service. To qualify, users must subscribe to a Sky TV package, the minimum price of which is £15 per month. Users can then choose from one of three broadband services, of which only the 'Base' package is free. You'll need to pay a £40 activation fee and will be tied to a 12-month contract, but for this you get a variety of funky television content. The main drawback is the miserly 2GB usage allowance.
Namesco
The final ISP on our list is the only truly free broadband ISP, but even this has its drawbacks. Namesco will charge you a £60 setup fee and gives you a paltry 512Kb connection with a 2GB usage cap. This may not seem a great deal, but there's no monthly fee and you're only tied into the service for one month at a time. The total cost for the year is therefore £60, but if you want to continue using the service at the end of the year, you'll need to pay £10.95 per month. The download speed is comparatively low and it doesn't let you download much, but if you're a casual user who doesn't want to sell your broadband soul for 18 months, it's probably the best solution.
All the 'free' broadband services are definitely worth investing in, but you should work out beforehand which one is right for you. If you use your landline a lot, particularly for international calls, TalkTalk is worth checking out, while if you're looking for a new mobile phone or make a lot of calls on the road, the Orange deal is hard to beat. Those looking for some entertainment should consider investing in the Sky TV package, while more casual users should definitely check out the Namesco deal. -Rory Reid
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AndreThu 10 August, 2006 3:19pm
OMG - this story may be correct for the pricing but says nothing about the quality. have you ever tried to type in talktalk charles dunstone in to google? charles dunstone is the ceo. you will find a huge amount of angry customers. if you are patiant (don´t need broadband for the next 3 months), don´t like gaming, don´t like p2p, don´t need support and are confident that you never ever want to move your home or disconnect from talktalk then it is absolutely the correct choice. read more on here: http://talktalkhell.wordpress.com/
AnonymousThu 10 August, 2006 4:34pm
afriad you got your susm wrong, because TalkTalk's £20.99 per month includes your line rental. With Orange and Sky (don't know about the other chap) you also have to pay £11 line rental to BT on top of the chrges you quoted. So Orange at £30 does have free BB, but you need a BT line (£11) to have it. So TalkTalk's cheaper then .........
AnonymousThu 10 August, 2006 4:38pm
I've used TalkTalk for the last few months and had no problems at all - admittedly you'd never want to call their helpline or call centre as they admit they have been inundated with enquiries. The speed seems good and never had any downtime. P2P works fine as does VPN – I’ve heard of other people saying they don’t but I’ve never had a problem. Don’t forget that all of your landlines calls are also included in the price and you no longer have to give BT £10 a month (which you would still have to do with the Sky package). My experience so far has been good and would recommend them!
David AscoughFri 11 August, 2006 4:30pm
I have been with TalkTalk for 4 months and wish I had never left BT.
I have the same 2mb connection I had with BT and the download speeds are so slow compared.
My connection with BT never dropped below 1600kbps but with TalkTalk it is rarely above 1000kbps and has been as low as 470kbps.
I have regularly e-mailed them and get a standard load of rubbish back, I have phoned them @ 10p a minute and waited and waited and then I think I get the cleaner on the line because they haven't a clue, and then they cut you off.
I have been told by someone in the know that it is the crappy servers they use.
I WILL NEVER LEARN "YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR" NOTHING IS FREE.
AnonymousFri 11 August, 2006 7:40am
You have failed to mention the important fact that Sky Broadband is only available to those whose exchange has been unbundled by Easynet (for those of you who know or care what this means) - which is only 28% of the population! Otherwise it's £18 a month!
AnonymousMon 21 August, 2006 11:27pm
All the comments are fine if you actually get what you are promised! I signed up with talk talk in APRIL it is now nearly SEPTEMBER and I still have an "inactive account" no matter what I do phone e-mail snail mail whatever I still get the same results, yes I have broadband but I do not have any access to web space or e-mail as detailed in their offer, my own experience says do not change what doesn't need changing I really did make a mistake in thinking I would actually get what the company offered,(some hope!)
F BrunetSat 12 August, 2006 10:53am
It seems there is a confusion on talk talk 3 and talk talk 3 internationnal, the £29.99 connection fee ONLY apply for the internation package!
The same apply for the lenth of the contract; you are only tied in for 18 month with the internationnal package, the talk talk 3 is a 3 month contract!
Therefore, you can apply for "free" broadband with talk talk 3 and have no connection fee to pay with only a 3 month minimum contract!
With regards,
F Brunet
Rory Reid (CNET.co.uk)Tue 15 August, 2006 3:25pm
You're absolutely correct -- there is a cancellation fee of 50+vat for Namesco, but the company insists there is no 'contract' as such. The table above has been adjusted to reflect the absence of of BT line rental across all the ISPs included in the blog post. The TalkTalk plan mentioned here is the international package.
AnonymousWed 16 August, 2006 11:19pm
the £50 cancellation fee from namesco is to recover the BT costs, BT charges isps £50 to activate broadband on a line, they waive this (as is common with all isps) in first 12 months but if you cancel during this time they want the money they had to pay bt back from you. its not a con or anything but standard industry practice due to the money grabbing of bt.
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AnonymousThu 10 August, 2006 2:37pm
May I utter a word of caution regarding the paragraph concerning Namesco.
Even though there is no monthly fee to pay for the first 12 months (* it's an apparently monthly contract), the user must remain contracted for the whole 12 months.
Should the user wish to cancel the service within the first 12 months, there will be a penalty of £50 +VAT to pay (on top of the initial £60 set-up fee already paid).
I know is seems crazy that if the service is used for 12 months then its 'free' yet if the service is cancelled within that time scale, the user has to pay some type of penalty fine.
If you look at the Namesco's T&C's (it's not easy to find) you will find confirmation of this penalty fee for early termination.