Save £240 A Year With A Broadband Bundle

Are broadband bundles really worth it? Find out whether you can save money here.

The broadband market is going through a purple patch. Prices are falling while take-up is rising. Ofcom, the industry watchdog, say 65% of us now have internet access with most using broadband. It's not surprising then that the market is fiercely competitive and the range of broadband deals on offer can be truly bewildering.

So how do you navigate your way through the broadband fog? One of the easiest ways is to combine your broadband, TV and phone into a single package. This sounds like a more simple approach than finding a separate provider for each, but does it really provide value for money?

I'm going to look at some of the best bundles and compare these with competitive options for each one separately. In a follow up article I'll look at how to go about switching to a new deal.

I'll also compare options for light users and heavier users.  If you're a light user you won't tend to use the internet for downloading say, music or videos so unlimited downloads (shown in Gb*) are probably more than you'll ever need. If you're a heavier user, you'll find this feature more useful and you'll also need a faster download speed (shown in Mb**).

So let's look at the three-in-one deals first.

Three-in-one deals: light users

For a bargain basement price, Sky See Speak Surf is offering a three-in-one bundle for just £16 a month. The price includes free evening/weekend calls, one Sky TV entertainment mix (any Sky TV package provides more than 200 TV and radio channels for free), a 2Mb download speed and a 2Gb download limit per month over a 12-month contract.

Now for the nitty gritty - you'll also need to pay a set-up cost of £30 and pay £11.75 per month for BT line rental. But beware these bundles are only available to 70% of the UK population while Sky try to cast the net further.

Monthly cost including line rental: £27.75

If you want more Sky TV channels, a faster broadband speed and larger download limit then be prepared to pay more.

If you can live without a lot of Sky TV channels, for a rock bottom price you could try BT's Broadband Option 1 which is £7.95 per month for the first three months and then £15.99 with a £30 connection fee if you install it yourself. The package includes free evening/weekend calls and 70 digital TV and radio channels as well as on demand programmes. The deal offers an 8Mb download speed and a 5Gb download limit per month over an 18 month contract, but you'll need to pay BT line rental.

Monthly cost including line rental: £25.73 (averaging the two tariffs over the year)

Three-in-one deals: heavier users

For heavier users, Tiscali Option 2 has a great bundle for £19.99 per month for three months and then £24.99. But, best of all, it includes free line rental.  It offers a download speed of 8Mb and unlimited downloads. Bear in mind that most deals which offer unlimited downloads are subject to a Fair Usage Policy. That means you may be charged extra if your usage is considered excessive.

The package also offers free weekend calls and over 60 TV and radio channels including some Sky channels. Again, you'll need to pay a connection fee of £30.

Monthly cost including line rental: £23.74 (averaging the two tariffs over the year)

Phone only deals

I've discounted these because you'll need a phone line for your broadband, so there's no sense in doubling up!

Phone and broadband deals

TalkTalk has an excellent deal with Talk2 International. This provides free evening/weekend calls to landlines plus free 8Mb broadband speed and 40Gb download limit at a monthly fee of £5.89 with TalkTalk line rental at £10.50. The contract lasts for 18 months with a £30 connection charge.

Monthly cost including line rental: £16.39

Broadband only deals: light user

If you're not fussed about super fast speed, go for Plusnet's Option 1 which costs £9.99 per month and offers a download speed of 8Mb and a download limit of 1Gb with a contract of just 1 month. You'll have to pay line rental but it doesn't have to be with BT.

Monthly cost including line rental: £21.74 (if you use a BT line)

Broadband only deals: heavier user

One of the most competitive deals I can find is O2 broadband premium at £15 per month. You'll get a download speed of 16Mb and unlimited downloads over a 12 month contract (as long as you're set up by 30th April 2008). You'll also need to pay BT line rental.

Monthly cost including line rental: £27.75

TV only deals

One of the cheapest ways to get extra TV channels is through a Freeview digibox which will set you back around £35 for a reasonably low cost digital TV receiver. This will allow you to access to 40 channels. Over a year this will cost less than £3 per month. If you want access to more TV channels via Sky, the basic package costs £16 per month with a one-off set up charge of £30.

Monthly cost: £3 or £16 if you want more Sky channels.

The Results

Finding the best deal is a bit of a minefield. But one thing's for sure, adding broadband to an existing BT line and arranging your TV separately is expensive.

For light users who want more Sky TV, the three-in-one Sky bundle comes in at £333 a year. This works out at a £120 saving over a year when you compare it with Plusnet's broadband only deal plus a basic Sky TV package which costs £453.

For heavier users, Tiscali's Option 2 costs just £284.88 for a year. This is £240 cheaper than broadband and phone from O2 plus a basic Sky TV package which costs £525 a year. This bundle is so low-cost that it's worth considering even if you don't use the internet regularly.

Finally, if you don't care about lots of Sky channels, then a good bet is TalkTalk with phone plus free broadband with a digibox bought separately. That way, you can get all three for a cheap as chips cost of less than £20 per month.

*Download limits are measured in gigabytes (Gb). To give you an idea 1.5Gb provides roughly 60 hours of web surfing. This should be sufficient if you're a light user and you're not an online gamer or you don't tend to download videos, movies, music and so on.

**Download speed is measured in megabits per second (Mb). A light user should find 2Mb is enough. But if you want to use downloads go for 8Mb at least. Note the actual speed achieved may be lower than the Mb quoted depending on how close you live to the exchange and the contention ratio. The higher the contention ratio, the greater the number of users that may be trying to use the actual bandwidth at any one time and, therefore, the lower the effective bandwidth and speed offered, especially at peak times.

More: Six Steps To Cheaper Broadband | Save £203 A Year With A Dongle