The Broadband jungle

The broadband provider I have had for ages has a download limit of 5gb per month, which I have been exceeding for the last few months and therefore it has been costing lots more per month. So I started looking at other providers.

My god! What a minefield.

I read the Which reports.

I found a good comparison site and have spent hours and hours there trying to compare them. Do I get a bundle with phone and broadband? Do I find out if Sky give a good deal and roll everything up with the tv supply?

You can have different download levels, theoretically different speeds (more about that later), and of course, different prices. Some of the phone and broadband bundles have their own phone lines (a local network arrangement) which may be fine unless you want to go back to BT because they may then charge you a reconnection fee - does that matter or not? Some are not compatible with Playstations - so they are out. Some are less compatible with Macs - so they are out. Some don't supply my area - so they are out. Some get really bad reviews - so they are out. It still leaves you with over a dozen choices.

However.

My phone exchange has a top speed of 6mb download, so the ones saying they can download superfast can't do it here. I am also looking for Brian who needs to put a phone and broadband into the cottage, which is in a different area and has different available providers, and a really slow speed of 0.5 download. So that went into the decision making process.

However my current contract for my phone provision with BT doesn't finish till June, so I can't change to a bundle till then. I contacted waitrose to say that I was exceeding my limit and were they going to increase the 5gb limit, because if not I would have to go, and they sent an email back saying to phone.

I phoned this evening and they are putting me up to 20gb for the same money as I pay now!

Hooray. The long term decision can now wait till the future.

This is good because it means I don't have to actually make a decision. It saves so much brainpower