Free broadband for a year with Tesco Broadband

Rebecca Rutt
by Lovemoney Staff Rebecca Rutt on 01 August 2012  |  Comments 9 comments

Tesco's broadband and phone deal now includes a £30 voucher, meaning you effectively don't pay anything for the first year! But how does it measure up against the rest of the market?

Free broadband for a year with Tesco Broadband

Back in February Tesco launched its £2.50 a month broadband deal and now to sweeten the offer you can also get a £30 voucher if you sign up.

This means effectively your contract is free for the first year (excluding line rental). And as it includes unlimited internet use and free evening and weekend calls, it’s a very impressive deal.

What’s included

The basic contract includes unlimited internet, so it’s perfect for someone who downloads a lot, free evening and weekend calls (including 0845/0870 numbers), free connection and a router.

If you sign up before 30th August you’ll also get a  £30 Tesco voucher to spend in store or online, thanks to the exclusive deal from Broadband Choices. To get this deal you need to quote the code ‘GIFTCARD-A’ at the checkout.

The catch

As with most phone and broadband packages, you also need to factor in the monthly line rental costs of £13.75 a month which brings the monthly total to £16.75.

It’s a 12-month contract and after this period the monthly payment goes up to £6.50, so including line rental you'll be shelling out £20,75. But at this point you could always switch to a cheaper deal.

What’s the best alternative?

The main competitors in the broadband market are in fierce competition at the moment to try and lure in new customers, which is good news for us as they’re throwing in a lot of extras with their deals.

BT is offering a £25 Sainsbury’s voucher to customers signing up to its Infinity Superfast Broadband deal, while with Sky there’s a £25 Marks and Spencer voucher up for grabs.

Tesco is the cheapest deal when looking at overall costs, but if you want a faster broadband speed, BT, Plusnet and Virgin all offer higher speeds - for a cost.

However, the best thing about the Tesco deal is that behind the sweeteners it is actually a really competitive offer. Here I’ve picked out five of the cheapest deals.

Top five cheapest phone and broadband deals

Provider

Speed (up to)

Usage limits

Calls package

Monthly cost

Total first year costs (including line rental)

Offers

Tesco

14Mb

Unlimited

Free evening and weekend

£2.50

£195

£30 Tesco gift card (exclusively through BroadbandChoices) before 20th August

Plusnet

16Mb

10Gb

Free weekend calls

£6.49

£219.25

Half price for the first six months until 28th August (online exclusive)

Talk Talk

14Mb

Unlimited

Free evening and weekend

£6.50

£232.50

Half price for the first six months, £25 Love2Shop voucher until 9th August

BT

16Mb

10Gb

Free evening and weekend

£13

£260.15

Free for the first six months, £25 gift card until 4th October

Virgin

30Mb

Unlimited

Free weekend calls

£14.50

£267.30

£4.50 for the first six months and free installation until 30th August

More on broadband:

Compare broadband deals in your area at BroadbandChoices

Cheapest ways to use mobile broadband abroad

Broadband speeds: broadband providers are lying to us

BT launches phone and broadband deal for £3.50 a month

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Comments (9)

  • Mike10613
    Love rating 599
    Mike10613 said

    You can pay your line rental 12 months in advance with TalkTalk and save £60 and I think they have a deal for the first 3 months too. When you renew your contract they give you a discount to keep you with them too.

    Report on 05 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • electricblue
    Love rating 643
    electricblue said

    Primus is cheaper than any of the providers listed.

    Report on 05 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • Megatyte
    Love rating 21
    Megatyte said

    @Mike10613

    Plusnet do a similar deal. The discount for paying yearly in advance is not as much as Talk Talk but their line rental is lower to start with.

    Talk Talk's standard line rental is £14.50 PM compared to Plusnet at £12.99.

    Paying one year in advance with Talk Talk will cost you £114 which equates to £9.50 PM.

    One year in advance with Plusnet will cost £113.88 which equates to £9.49 PM.

    As far as line rental is concerned you can see that there is nothing to choose between them - but I know who I would rather deal with when it comes down to customer service!

    ( I haven't checked if Talk Talk's prices include VAT, I assume that they do. Plusnet prices are VAT inclusive)

    A H

    Report on 05 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • TheWildshot
    Love rating 0
    TheWildshot said

    Would love to be able to take advantage of these deals. Sadly I live just outside of Hull so our landline and landline broadband choices are either KC (aka Kingston Communications) or none at all. I pay around £28 for line rental and 5gb a month. Shocking that there is no choice.

    We are constantly told that the equipment is different here. Since BT and others haven't invested to use compatible equipment we cannot choose a different provider. That is the same for the telephone too. We are the forgotten ones who miss out of the great broadband deals. We pay more than others and get less. It's about time this monopoly was stopped and we had a choice.

    #unfairpostcodelottery

    Report on 07 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • bazza1970
    Love rating 2
    bazza1970 said

    Broadband charges can be a complete rip off. I may well feature these soon in my amazing blog about the things that make us all mad. Read it and follow if you dare! http//:www.mrcashinsmadworld.wordpress.com

    Report on 09 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • nosbort
    Love rating 126
    nosbort said

    All of these deals are flawed, there is not one of the companies mentioned here which does not have a 'Fair Usage Policy' It's time that the customers refused to accept a set of terms and conditions like these policies which allow the provider to reduce the speed provided at times of their choosing simply so that they can over sell the capacity that they have available. Read your ISP's FUP. If they want to reduce your download speed then they can. If they deem that your usage of the 'unlimited' (or any other) package is too high, they can, and will, limit your access by reducing your download speed and if they decide to do so, even stop your service altogether. Go and find one of the small number of ISPs who do not over-sell their capacity and have no FUP and do not indulge in the sharp practise of 'Traffic Shaping'.

    Report on 10 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • markj9035
    Love rating 19
    markj9035 said

    Ok Bazza, I don't do blogs but just read a few of yours and I'm prepared to give it a whirl. I look forward to more. And yes the first one is just about right on the money.

    Report on 10 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • nosbort
    Love rating 126
    nosbort said

    @ TheWildshot, sorry for the shadenfreude but I can remember when KC customers used to tell we mere mortals, who were suffering from BT's lack of infrastructure investment, how great it was to have such a forward-looking and tech savvy company providing their wonderful phone service. Well, ya-boo sucks to you lot ;)

    Report on 10 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • CuNNaXXa
    Love rating 362
    CuNNaXXa said

    It annoys me that these broadband services are compared at cost level, yet there is never an actual performance comparison.

    To quote a local example, TalkTalk is far cheaper than BT in our area, so you could save a shed load of cash over the year, but contention and bandwidth can make all the difference. In our area, BT is about four times quicker, and disconnections because of contention is few and far between, while those on TalkTalk complain about very slow speeds, and continual disconnection.

    You pay for what you get. If it is cheaper, it is probably due to a lower quality of service.

    What I would like to see with any review of a service such as this is price comparison to service level, showing actual data to demonstrate how reliable or unreliable a service is. After all, it may be cheaper, but if it is unusable, then the little it costs is probably a waste of cash.

    Report on 10 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love

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