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Bundling your broadband with phone calls
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Bundling your broadband with phone calls
With an ever-increasing portfolio of services, bundling is clearly here to stay - you can now combine not only your broadband and home phone, but also your digital TV and even your mobile phone and mobile broadband, with even more money saving packages.
compare broadband and home phone bundle packages.
With so many promotions and offers around at the moment, bundles can get a little confusing. Do they really save you time and money, or is it better to get your services from the cheapest individual providers?
Although research by PointTopic in August 2008 showed that bundles are still significantly cheaper than standalone products, price isn’t the only thing you need to take into account. Think about your personal needs; what you want and what you will actually use, and take an ISP's customer service and technical support into consideration too.
Leading phone and broadband packages
Although headline rates can make a package seem attractive, you need to take into account things like additional line rental that has to be paid on some packages. For example, TalkTalk Broadband’s (www.TalkTalk.co.uk) Talk UK Weekend & Broadband has a headline rate of just £4.99 a month and comes with "free broadband" up to 8Mb, but when you take the £10.50 line rental into account, this rises to £15.49 a month - more than Tiscali Broadband (www.Tiscali.co.uk), which has a headline rate of £14.99 but comes with free line rental instead, 8Mb broadband and free UK weekend calls.
Before rushing to purchase a broadband and phone bundle it is important to look at the details of your chosen package. Call rates are a particular area where companies can make back some of the money they lose on their low headline rates.
What if I make lots of phone calls?
There’s more to any broadband and home phone bundle than just the headline rate. If you are a high, or even moderate, home phone user you might benefit by paying for a slightly more expensive option that could save you money in the long run through cheaper call charges.
For example, if you rely heavily on your home phone, then you really need a call plan that’s not going to cost the earth. If this is the case, then you’re probably better off going for Toucan Broadband (www.Toucan.com) or TalkTalk who offer some of the cheapest call rates. However, the quality of your broadband might not be as good - in September 2008, Toucan and TalkTalk customers received less than 35 per cent of their advertised speed on average.
What if I'm a light home phone user?
On the other hand, if you’re a light home phone user and your main priority is to have high quality, fast broadband then Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com) is a great choice. Regularly appearing at the top of the BroadbandChoices.co.uk speed test table, Virgin Media’s broadband is reliable and fast, though its call rates are not as competitive. Tiscali also regularly features in the top five providers.
Ditch the bundle and build your own
The final option, if you want a cheap call package, with cheap line rental - and cheap calls - but don’t want to sacrifice the quality of your broadband, is to ditch the whole idea of bundling and go for separate providers that will give you the best of what you want. Combining Be Broadband (www.BeThere.co.uk) - which provides some of the UK’s fastest residential broadband at speeds of up to 24Mb and has a great customer satisfaction record - with Toucan’s All You Can Off-Peak UK evening and weekend call package for £3.75 and its £8.99 line rental is a good option.
Taking the Be Unlimited broadband package for £18 a month with Toucan and you get a total of £30.74 a month. While this does cost more per month than the cheapest bundles, you’re guaranteed to get the best value, and quality, broadband and home phone calls, without sacrificing your services.
Click here to compare more broadband providers or bundles.
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