The best broadband deals for under £5

There are a raft of broadband offers available for under a fiver, but are they any good?

If you’re after a bargain broadband deal there are a fair few which now cost less than £5 a month kicking about.

But exactly what sort of value can you get in exchange for paying so little on a broadband package?

I've rounded up the best deals for under a fiver to find out.

The best broadband deals under £5

These offers are arranged by total first-year cost.

*EE/T-Mobile/Orange mobile customers only

** Free Talk Talk to Talk Talk calls

***Price includes £15 credit only availble if you apply through broadbandchoices.com

****Existing Sky TV customers

No skimping

Rock bottom prices tend to give companies the chance to skimp on the benefits. But as you can see for less than £5 a month you can get a pretty decent package.

Every deal, apart from the one provided by DirectSave Telecom, comes with a truly unlimited usage allowance. Truly unlimited deals are not subject to a fair usage policy. So even though you might be paying under £5 you’ll be getting the zenith of broadband usage, giving you the freedom to download as much as you want with most of these deals.

When it comes to your home broadband connection, the only other thing to worry about is how fast the service is. The average speed in the UK has got better and now stands at 14.7 Megabits per second (Mbps). So all of the super cheap deals above tick this box too, with each one offering speeds of 14Mbps or 16Mbps and DirectSave Telecom claiming speeds of up to 24Mbps.

What's more all the deals, apart from Talk Talk’s Simply Broadband, come with  free calls to boot. Most of the deals only offer free weekend calls, but Tesco's Broadband + Home Phone- which is the cheapest deal overall - comes with free evening and weekend calls. This is on top of free broadband for a year which you can get as long as you take out line rental.This is a limited time offer though and is available until 1st December.

Apart from the cost of the package, there is also the line rental to consider. Line rental charges vary from provider to provider with Talk Talk  and Sky charging the most out of the deals listed above. But many providers offer a line rental saver scheme where you can lower the cost by paying upfront.

With the Talk Talk deal for example if you paid £126 upfront you would save £58.80 on the normal cost of the line rental. That works out as £10.50 a month instead of £15.40.

Temporary low

It's worth pointing out that while these super cheap broadband deals can't be accused of skimping on the benefits, some are only a temporary bargain.

The Primus Saver Broadband + Phone deal for example costs £2 a month, but that's only for six months out of an 18-month deal. It's a half price offer that rises to £4 a month a third of the way through the contract. This bumps the cost from £16.90 a month to £18.90 a month, including line rental. So you will be paying £18.90 a month for longer than you were paying £16.90, before you can switch penalty-free.

However, some deals last as long as the contract, which means you can move onto a better offer once the costs change.

With the Plusnet Unlimited + Weekend deal for example you'll pay the better than half price cost of £1.99 for the package for the full 12 months of the contract. After 12 months the price of the deal will return to charging £9.99 a month, meaning monthly payments will rise from £16.49 to £24.49 a month, including line rental, which is a pretty steep increase. But because the deal lasts the length of the contract you can move on without charge.

You'll be in the same position with the Tesco Broadband + Home Phone, EE Unlimited Broadband & Weekend Calls and the Sky Broadband Unlimited + Talk Weekends offers.

The Talk Talk Simply Broadband and the DirectSave Telecom deals are the only offers that don't chop and change, so if you want an easy life you might want to consider one of these two.

Getting a better deal

It's estimated UK households waste £500 million a year by failing to switch their broadband package.

A recent survey by broadbandchoices.co.uk found a third of British homes hadn't changed their provider or package in at least four years.

Loyalty isn’t worth much to most providers. Read Why it never pays to stay loyal to broadband, TV and phone companies for more.

Apart from Sky and EE, none of the deals under £5 are available to existing customers.

So if you've been languishing on a poor value deal or if prices are about to rise on your package switch onto something better. You can compare deals with broadbandchoices.co.uk.

More on broadband:

The best broadband dongle

The fastest broadband providers

The UK's best and worst broadband providers

BT ends free email for non-broadband customers

Direct Save Telecom launches no-contract unlimited broadband

Ofcom to allow customers to leave broadband and phone contracts without penalty