You don’t have to break the bank to get superfast broadband. If you live in a busy household and could do with some extra bandwidth, or you simply want a bleeding edge connection, you’re in luck.
Some UK ISPs are now offering superfast internet services for peanuts, relatively speaking. They won’t be as cheap as some of the bargain basement standard broadband packages out there, but you could save a few quid.
Here are the cheapest superfast broadband deals on offer in the UK right now.
BT Infinity 1 Plus – 12 month contract
- Download Speeds: Up to 52Mbps
- Usage cap: 25GB
- Connection Fee: £39
- Router: £7.95 (delivery charge)
- Broadband: £10/month
- Standard line rental: £17.99/month
- Total Monthly Cost: £27.99/month
Note that from July 3 2016, BT will increase standard line rental to £18.99/month and line rental saver to £205.08/year (equivalent to £17.99/month)BT’s cheapest superfast service is BT Infinity 1, a no-frills superfast service that eschews things like bundled landline calls and just gives you an up to 52Mbps FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) service.
That said, you will be provided with a landline with this service and any calls you make will be charged on a pay-as-you-go basis.
The broadband element of BT Infinity 1 costs £10/month and the standard rate of line rental is £17.99/month. If you want to make a 10 per cent saving on line rental, you can pay £194.30 up front, which will cover you for the duration of the service. There’s also a £49 connection fee for the Infinity service and £7.95 for postage should you wish to take the free (but optional) BT Home Hub 5 router.
While there is a 25GB usage cap, BT Infinity 1 isn’t constrained by any traffic shaping or peak time management. Out of bundle charges are £1.50 per GB.
BT Unlimited Infinity 1 – 12 month contract
- Download Speeds: Up to 52Mbps
- Usage cap: Unlimited
- Connection Fee: £49
- Router: £7.95 (delivery charge)
- Broadband: £20/month
- Standard line rental: £17.99/month
- Total Monthly Cost: £37.99/month
BT’s superfast broadband footprint swells to cover 25m premises
BT’s cheapest superfast service with no download limits is BT Unlimited Infinity 1. The standard price for this is currently £20/month.
Line rental is charged at £17.99/month as standard or £194.30 for the year, which works out as being 10 per cent cheaper than the basic price. There’s also a £49 connection fee for the Infinity service and £7.95 for postage should you wish to take the free (but optional) BT Home Hub 5 router.
It’s also worth noting that BT Infinity 1 Unlimited is, to borrow the industry parlance, ‘truly unlimited’. In layman’s terms, this means that there’s no service management at peak times and no traffic shaping of any kind. Check out our feature on traffic management policies for more details.
Sky Fibre – 12 month contract
- Download Speeds: Up to 38Mbps
- Usage cap: 25GB
- Connection Fee: £30/£50
- Router: £6.95 (delivery charge)
- Broadband: £10/month
- Standard line rental: £17.40/month
- Total Monthly Cost: £27.40/month
What is FTTC aka Fibre to the Cabinet and what does it mean?Sky’s entry-level FTTC service gives you top download speeds of 38Mbps for £10/month plus £17.40/month for line rental.
That’s cheaper than BT’s basic Infinity service month-on-month, but there’s no option to pay for a year’s worth of line rental up front.
Sky Fibre connection fees are charged at £30 for new customers £50 for upgrading Sky customers. Likewise, the Sky Hub wireless router is included free (plus a £6.95 delivery charge) for new customers, but older Sky customers who want the latest hardware will need to pay £69 for this.
While there is a 25GB usage cap associated with Sky Fibre, there’s no traffic shaping nor are there any out of bundle charges.
What happens if you stray beyond the 25GB threshold is Sky will email you to let you know in the first instance. If you use up more than 25GB on two occasions across a six month period, you’ll automatically be bumped up to the next package – Sky Fibre Unlimited – which costs a little more (prices for this are detailed below).
Sky Fibre Unlimited – 12 month contract
- Download Speeds: Up to 38Mbps
- Usage cap: Unlimited
- Connection Fee: £30/£50
- Router: £6.95 (delivery charge)
- Broadband: £10/month
- Standard line rental: £17.40/month
- Total Monthly Cost: £27.40/month
Sky’s currently pricing its Sky Fibre Unlimited service at £10/month – the same as Sky Fibre – but it’s unclear for how long this will be the case.
Sky Fibre Unlimited gives you download speeds of up to 38Mbps, unlimited downloads with no traffic shaping or peak time management.
Line rental is charged at £17.40/month. There’s no option to pay for a year’s worth up front.
Connection fees for Sky Fibre Unlimited are charged at £30 for new customers £50 for upgrading Sky customers. The Sky Hub wireless router is included free (plus a £6.95 delivery charge) for new customers. Older Sky customers who want the latest wireless router will need to pay £69 for this.
Virgin Media SuperFibre 50 and calls – 18 month contract
- Download Speeds: Up to 50Mbps
- Usage cap: Unlimited
- Connection Fee: £49.99
- Router: Free (no delivery charge)
- Broadband: £8/month for 12 months then £19/month
- Standard line rental: £17.99/month
- Total Monthly Cost: £25.99/month for 12 months then £36.99/month
The cheapest Virgin Media broadband deal with calls costs £4.99/month for the first 12 months and then £17.50/month for the remaining 6 months.
Virgin Phone line rental is charged at £16.99/month or, if you want to make a bit of a saving, you can pay £164 up front for a year’s worth of rental, which represents a saving of £39.88.
Virgin Media SuperHub wireless routers are included free for free and there’s not even any charges for delivery of postage.
There is a one-off installation fee of £49.95 which, if you’ve previously had Virgin Media installed in your home and all of the sockets are set up, you can opt out of – just choose Virgin Media QuickStart during sign up if you can and you’re confident you can do everything on your own. Otherwise, that £49.95 charge will include an engineer visit, set-up and line check to make sure everything’s working.
Virgin Media SuperFibre 50 broadband only – 12 month contract
- Download Speeds: Up to 50Mbps
- Usage cap: Unlimited
- Connection Fee: £49.99
- Router: Free (no delivery charge)
- Broadband: £30.25/month
- Standard line rental: n/a
- Total Monthly Cost: £30.25/month
If you’re not at all fussed about TV and phone calls and all that and you just want superfast broadband, then you can get Virgin Media’s SuperFibre 50 service, which costs just £30.25 – no line rental required. There’s no charge for the Virgin Media SuperHub and there’s no delivery charges either.
There is a one-off activation fee of £9.99 for all customers.
Customers who’ve already got Virgin Media cables and sockets installed at their address can choose to skip the standard £40 installation fee and choose Virgin Media QuickStart during sign up. This means you won’t get an engineer round to set everything up, but if you know what you’re doing and you want to save a bit of cash, then this is a good choice. Otherwise, you’ll pay £49.99 for activation and installation.
TalkTalk Fibre Medium – 18 month contract
- Download Speeds: Up to 38Mbps
- Usage cap: Unlimited
- Connection Fee: £50
- Router: £6.95 (delivery charge)
- Broadband: £10/month for 12 months, £17.50/month thereafter
- Standard line rental: £17.70/month
- Total Monthly Cost: £27.70/month for 12 months, then £35.20/month
TalkTalk’s entry-level superfast service gives you download speeds of up to 38Mbps and unlimited downloads with no traffic shaping for just £5/month.
There’s no inclusive calls added on to this service although as a phone line is required, there is a charge for line rental. This costs either £17.70/month or £191.60 – going for the latter option sees you saving £20.80.
The TalkTalk SuperRouter is free in itself, but there’s a £6.95 charge for deliveries.
EE Fibre up to 38Mbps + Weekend Calls only – 18 month contract
- Download Speeds: Up to 38Mbps
- Usage cap: Unlimited
- Connection Fee: £50
- Router: £6 (delivery charge)
- Broadband: £9.95/month
- Standard line rental: £17.50/month
- Total Monthly Cost: £27.45/month
UK ISP’s Fair Use Policies: Do BT, Virgin Media, Sky, TalkTalk and EE shape traffic?EE’s cheapest superfast deal gives you top download speeds of 38Mbps, unlimited downloads and free weekend calls to UK landlines to boot.
As there’s no ‘broadband only’ or similar option from EE, this is the cheapest it gets, superfast-wise.
All of this will cost you £9.95/month plus the cost of line rental which is either £17.50/month or £189 up front for 12 months worth of line rental cover (a saving of £21).
While there’s no cap on how much you stream or download on EE Fibre, there is a traffic management policy in place, which sees VoIP and gaming traffic prioritised and P2P, Newsgroup, audio and video streaming and music and video downloads downranked at peak times.
Direct Save Telecom Fibre Broadband + Weekend Calls – 18 months
- Download Speeds: Up to 38Mbps
- Usage cap: Unlimited
- Connection Fee: £24.95
- Router: £8.95 (delivery charge)
- Broadband: Free for three months then £14.75/month
- Standard line rental: £17.75/month
- Total Monthly Cost: £17.75/month for three months then £32.50/month
True to its name, budget ISP Direct Save Telecom has got a great money-saving superfast offer on the books.
It’s Fibre Broadband service provides download speeds of up to 38Mbps, unlimited downloads and doesn’t shape traffic.
This costs £14.75/month plus line rental, which is priced at either £14.75/month or £138 for 12 months’ worth. There’s a one-off set-up fee of £24.95.
Weekend calls to UK landlines (midnight Friday to midnight on Sunday) are included with this bundle.
Zen Internet Fibre 1
- Download Speeds: Up to 38Mbps
- Usage cap: 50GB
- Connection Fee: £30
- Router: £6.95 (delivery charge)
- Broadband: £19.50/month
- Standard line rental: £16.99/month
- Total Monthly Cost: £36.49/month
Zen Internet’s basic FTTC service offers top download speeds of 38Mbps and comes with a 50GB monthly data cap.
Aside from the monthly data allowance, there’s no limitations on usage as Zen Internet doesn’t shape any kind of traffic at any time of day.
Fibre 1 from Zen costs £19.50/month plus line rental which is £16.99/month. There’s no line rental saver option available from Zen Internet.
Zen includes an optional Technicolor TG589 wireless router for free (minus £6.95 for delivery) with all of its packages.
Out of bundle charges on Zen Internet products are £1.52 inc. VAT for every extra GB you use. Based on current VAT rates, this works out at an extra £1.82/GB at the time of writing.
Zen Internet Unlimited Fibre 1
- Download Speeds: Up to 38Mbps
- Usage cap: Unlimited
- Connection Fee: £30
- Router: £6.95 (delivery charge)
- Broadband: £27/month
- Standard line rental: £16.99/month
- Total Monthly Cost: £49.99/month
If you don’t want to worry about straying into the out-of-bundle danger zone, you can get Unlimited Fibre 1 from Zen. This gives you the same top download speed of 38Mbps but has no download limits.
Unlimited Fibre 1 from Zen costs £27/month plus line rental which is £16.99/month. There’s no line rental saver option available from Zen Internet.
Zen includes an optional Technicolor TG589 wireless router for free (minus £6.95 for delivery) with all of its packages.
SSE Superfast Fibre Broadband + Talk Weekend – 18 month contract
- Download Speeds: Up to 38Mbps
- Usage cap: Unlimited
- Connection Fee: £50
- Router: £6.95 (delivery charge)
- Broadband: £20/month
- Standard line rental: £13.49/month
- Total Monthly Cost: £33.49/month
Big-name energy provider SSE is currently running a compelling superfast broadband offer which sees you get the first six months of an up to 38Mbps service for free.
By which we mean there’s no charge for anything, besides a one-off £50 connection charge. You won’t have to pay for broadband, calls or line rental for the first six months of this 18 month contract.
While there’s no limit on downloads, SSE does operate a traffic management policy which sees VoIP and VPN use prioritised and P2P traffic shaped so that it doesn’t interfere with general web browsing.
After that, you’ll pay £20/month for an unlimited up to 38Mbps FTTC service and £13.49/month for line rental. While there’s no option to pay for a year’s worth of line rental up front, this low price plus the six months discount makes this a very attractive offer.
The Talk Weekend landline calls service gives you inclusive UK landline calls from midnight on Friday to midnight on Sunday.
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