Broadband & Phone Bundles

How to Use a Broadband & Phone Package

IF you like to have a natter on the phone but your kids are more obsessed with email you might want to look at fulfilling both your communication needs with a broadband and phone bundle.

The costs of broadband and phone bundle packages have come down dramatically over the past few years with extensive competition in the market meaning that there are some great deals to be had. Check out our broadband and phone comparison page (or get your kids to do it) for the latest in broadband and home phone packages. All our broadband prices and details are updated daily, so you can accurately compare the broadband and phone marketplace.

Things to watch out for:

Cancellation costs
When broadband began to emerge as a necessary utility in people's homes, hundreds of broadband providers sprung up, all trying to get a piece of the action. They were obviously all perspicacious enough to realise the wealth of untapped consumer money that broadband would unlock.

The creation of the broadband and phone bundle furthered this notion, as providers realised that if they could tie you into a linked contract with more than one product, not only could they make a load more money, but it would also make it more difficult for you to leave them. To strengthen this notion they created financial incentives to prevent you from wandering off. For example: To prevent customers from leaving BT for one of the blossoming cable broadband providers BT impose a £115 reconnection charge if you drop their line in favour of cable provider Virgin Media.

Be aware of such ploys, along with additional costs for breaking contract and/or switching broadband providers.
N.B. If you leave a broadband provider, some providers will insist that you return modems and other paraphernalia that they provide you with during your setup.

Making the most of your broadband and phone bundle:

Play to the strengths
A combined phone and broadband package for a reduced price may seem great, but remember, it wouldn’t exist if it didn’t make the supplier money. However, the amount they make on top of their base rate though, is entirely down to how you use your broadband and phone bundle.

Firstly, choose you broadband and phone bundle wisely. As you will see from a brief glance at our broadband and phone comparison page there are loads of providers all offering slightly different packages, so you can afford to be picky to get one that suits your lifestyle. If you are at work during the week and are away on weekends try to find a broadband and phone package that offers free evening calls. Similarly, if you are a heavy downloader look for a package with unlimited download limits.

Once you have chosen the right package of phone and broadband to suit you make sure you use it to it’s full potential to eke the most out of your monthly fee.

Using call override providers
With broadband prices essentially slashed to zero when taken alongside a home phone call package, you have to suspect that the call charges are going to be a bit pricey. In many cases they are not, but they will come nowhere near the prices offered by telephone call override providers.

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of call overriders, then you are paying too much for your phone bill. Call overriders are companies that you can sign up to who will override your phone provider's rates when you dial out, offering instead their much lower - and often free - call rates.

There are subscription-based call overriders like 18185.com and then there are simple, pay-as-you-go, phone access overriders like Telediscount where you dial into them through a low-rate 08 number, then dial your destination.

The problem is that subscription-based override providers (who clearly offer the best call rates) only work on the BT ADSL network. This does not mean that you have to be with BT for your broadband or phone, it simply means that you need to be with a provider who uses BT lines. Broadband providers like AOL, TalkTalk, Sky Broadband, Pipex and Tiscali are, for the most part, independent of BT's ADSL network and operate instead on their own local-loop unbundled telephone exchanges. The good news is that non-susbscription based overriders will work on these networks.

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