Best broadband deals UK: Get 50% off, Sky TV for £6

If you’re looking for the fastest broadband speeds, you’ll need a full-fibre connection.

Delivering broadband to the Wi-Fi router in your home with fibre-optic cables results in much faster speeds and better reliability. Older connections tend to rely on ageing copper cables for the final few metres from the exchange to your front door …and that seriously slows your downloads. Full-fibre connections also tend to be more reliable and faster uploads, which is important during video calls, backing up photos to the cloud, and collaborating on documents with co-workers remotely, for example.

Unfortunately, full-fibre connections aren’t available at every address in the UK, although it’s likely that – if you’re missing out at the moment – your area will be upgraded soon.

While every broadband provider bundles a free Wi-Fi router, TalkTalk has seriously upped the ante. The company is handing out Eero Pro 6 routers for free to anyone who signs-up for its full-fibre packages. Eero, which is owned by Amazon, offers a simple way to manage and monitor your home Wi-Fi network.

Its iPhone and Android app lets you limit internet access to certain devices, certain people, or during certain times (for a Wi-Fi-less dinner, for example). You can also create a Guest Wi-Fi network for neighbours or friends staying over with its own Wi-Fi password that can be regularly changed to boost security (without impacting any of your devices).

The Eero Pro 6 costs £209 when bought separately. TalkTalk customers can get multiple of these routers to ensure they have speedy Wi-Fi coverage throughout their homes (and most likely, most of the garden too!). If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to a mesh Wi-Fi network, or a Wi-Fi 6 router, then don’t bother spending the cash outright – upgrade to the latest broadband deal from TalkTalk.

Regulatory body Ofcom has released its annual report into affordability, which has highlighted the low uptake of so-called « Social Tariffs, » which are only available to households that receive – or are eligible to receive – Universal Credit or other legacy benefits. There are only six broadband suppliers in the UK that offer these « Social Tariffs »: BT, Community Fibre, G.Network, Hyperoptic, KCOM and Virgin Media O2.

Each of these discounted bundles offers an average download speed of between 10 to 67Mbps. The latter is the average home broadband speed recorded in the UK last year. Prices for these discounted packages vary between £10 to £20 a month. And there are a number of other benefits too, BT only requires a 12-month minimum contract term for its Home Essentials bundle, which is half what you’ll need to sign-up for when buying one of its standard broadband bundles.

But despite the clear benefits of these « Social Tariffs », of the 4.2 million households who receive Universal Credit and are eligible for these discounted deals, a meagre 55,000 homes have signed up. That’s just 1.2 percent of those eligible, Ofcom research shows.

So, if you live in one of the 4.2 million households eligible for a « Social Tariff », we’d recommend signing up for BT’s Home Essentials plan. It includes average 67Mbps download speeds and 700 minutes of calls from the landline for £15 a month. For comparison, BT charges £32.99 a month for its Full Fibre 2 bundle, which offers average download speeds of 74Mbps. So, Universal Credit claimants will benefit from some hefty savings – around £17.99 a month, or over £215 over the course of a year. And the benefits don’t end there.

BT will never charge an early exit fee if your circumstances change, so you can leave within the 12-month minimum contract term and not worry about any extra charges. That’s different to every other broadband deal available from BT.

Want to avoid signing up for an 18- or 24-month contract with your new broadband deal? There are a number of benefits to a contract-free broadband deal, including the fact that you’re free to switch to any other deals that catch your eye, you can upgrade to faster speeds at the drop of a hat, or you can downgrade your speeds to cut your monthly bills. If there’s a price rise on the horizon, you can switch to another provider to unlock a better deal. And of course, if you’re living in a rented property, you won’t pay for a month more than you use.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? The only catch is that contract-free broadband deals typically cost a little more than longer contracts. The stability provided by signing up for a two-year contract allows you to unlock cheaper deals with bundled freebies, like the deals already listed in this article. However, the flexibility afforded by a contract-free deal could outweigh the extra costs each month. When it comes to contract-free, there are a number of options on the market, including new-kid-on-the-block, Cuckoo Broadband.

But when it comes to contract-free broadband, the best deal is NOW, formerly NOW TV. The Sky-owned firm offers contract-free access to its best satellite channels, movies, sports, and broadband. For £22 per month, NOW’s Super Fibre broadband plan offers download speeds of 63Mbps.

Granted, that’s not going to set any records, but it’s fast enough to stream boxsets in 4K Ultra HD quality from Netflix and Prime Video, as well as stutter-free video calls, and music streaming. NOW offers unlimited downloads, so you don’t need to worry about any extra charges for streaming all hours of the day. If you want a monthly rolling contract, you’ll need to pay £60 upfront cost (this is waived if you sign-up for a 12-month contract), but that extra charge is a small price to pay for the flexibility to leave at any time.

If you want to see what else is available on the market right now, Express.co.uk has rounded up every deal that’s worth your time (and hard-earned cash) below. This should provide some context on why we believe the above deals are such standouts, but also, might flag a similar offer from a preferred broadband supplier that might be a better fit for your needs. One thing is for sure – if you’re currently out-of-contract, you should be able to find a brilliant new deal below…

That’s a toughie as the answer is different for everyone. After all, it really depends on what you want to do with your Wi-Fi network.

The average UK broadband speed currently sits around 70Mbps, which is more than enough to stream a boxset on Netflix, make a video call on WhatsApp or FaceTime, or back up your photos to the cloud. But if you attempt to do all of these tasks at the same time, you’re likely to run into some extended loading times.

Imagine your broadband speed is a motorway. To stretch this metaphor to breaking point, the total download speed available with your contract represents the number of lanes in the motorway. As more traffic uses the motorway at the same time, everything slows down.

Fibre broadband is the future of the internet, and telecoms firms like Virgin Media and BT’s Openreach have been hard at work upgrading their networks to deliver these super-fast download speeds. While existing broadband connections rely on copper cables to deliver internet from those green communication boxes littered throughout UK streets, full-fibre broadband – as the name suggests – uses more powerful (and reliable) fibre-optic cables to your front door instead.

The fastest fibre broadband speeds currently available in the UK is offered with Virgin Media’s Gig1 package, which boasts average download speeds of 1,130Mbps. That’s light years ahead of the average broadband download speed in Blighty, which stands at around 70Mbps as measured earlier in 2021.

As an example of the benefits of fibre connections, Gigabit broadband will let you download a feature-length movie in High Definition in just 36 seconds, or a crisp Ultra HD 4K film in under three minutes. These speeds mean busy households will be able to back up their photos, download software updates, make video calls, binge boxsets in 4K, and play video games online all at the same time at peak times without a hint of buffering. It also future-proofs homes for the next wave of technology, including 8K video quality, virtual reality, and more.

By the end of 2021, Virgin Media upgraded its entire network of 15.5million homes to gigabit-capable broadband (although it will take longer until all of those customers are using full-fibre connections). So if you’re covered by Virgin Media you can sign up right away. While BT’s Openreach will finish its full-fibre network upgrade (some 25 million homes) by December 2026. So far, the super-fast downloads are available to more than six million properties covered by Openreach, which supplies infrastructure for BT, TalkTalk, Sky, Plusnet, EE, Vodafone, and many more.

Smaller companies, like Hyperoptic, Gigaclear and Community Fibre, have sprung up to bring full-fibre broadband to areas not currently served by either Virgin Media or Openreach. These include projects specifically targeted at rural villages or commuter towns. If you can’t wait for next-generation broadband, these are a great option – and can be cheaper than better-known brands too.

In a nutshell, the fastest broadband speeds available in the UK come from Community Fibre, which offers a mind-bogglingly speedy 3Gbps. With download speeds of 3,000Mbps, you’ll be able to download movies, stream boxsets from Netflix, join video calls, back-up photos and data from your devices, and play online multiplayer around 43x faster than the average home broadband connection in the UK, which was measured at 70Mbps last year.

At £89 a month, Community Fibre’s 3Gbps full-fibre broadband plan doesn’t come cheap. But the biggest hurdle is the availability.

Community Fibre is currently only available in London …and even if you do live in the capital, the 3Gbps package isn’t available anywhere. It’s worth checking to see whether the full-fibre in your street has been upgraded to support the speeds, but don’t hold your breath.

Virgin Media offers speeds up to 1Gbps, or 1,000Mbps – some 14x faster than the standard British homeowners’ internet connection, to more than 15.5million premises. For context, Netflix recommends at least 25Mbps to watch its boxsets and movies in the best picture quality available, 4K Ultra HD. That should give you some idea about the dizzying amount of bandwidth available with a 1Gbps connection for most users. Signing up to one of these full-fibre bundles will suit even the busiest households – with multiple people streaming music, making videocalls, collaborating on documents online, downloading video, backing up devices, and more, at the same time.