Free broadband

- Is it really free broadband? A study of orange,sky,talktalk isp

Some providers like BT and Talktalk offer free broadband. Are they totally free? Not like that. Free broadband means if you order a phone package from them, you can have a broadband for free.

Since most households will already be paying around £11 a month for their line rental, plus spending at least £13 on broadband, and then have to pay for calls or digital television on top, these deals will definitely save you money – but that's not all that should be considered.

• TalkTalk – Customers must sign up for TalkTalk line rental, at £10.50 a month (the same as BT). Then they also need to pay for their phone package at £9.99 a month. This includes all local and national calls, as well as calls to any one of 30 countries on TalkTalk's list, including all of Europe, Australia and the US. You then get "free" broadband at no extra cost with a top speed of 8Mb, and a high download limit of 40GB. More information on Go to
  
• Orange – You need to be an Orange customer on a pay monthly mobile plan costing more than £30 a month. You can then get a connection of up to 2Mb, with a 2GB download limit. This would suit high-end mobile phone users.
• Sky – If you already have, or want, Sky TV, then you can also get "free" broadband with your package. They will also give you a 2Mb broadband connection with a download limit of 2GB, but will charge you a £40 installation fee. Go to
  

Any catches?

The old adage "you get what you pay for" applies here. Some of the main drawbacks are the long 18 month contracts and the initial teething problems they have had, such as poor customer service, low starting speeds and around four week's wait to be connected for TalkTalk customers.

It is important to remember that when you get a free add-on, you might not get the highest quality service. This could apply to customer support – TalkTalk recently admitted over-stretching their call centres, and being "overwhelmed by demand". it could be that availability is limited, as is the case with Sky, or you could encounter outages in your service, as some Orange customers have experienced.

It is no coincidence that in a customer poll in 2006, Orange and TalkTalk – who both offer "free" broadband – came bottom of the pile.

As these deals become more established, their service is likely to improve, but just make sure that you do your research and know of any remaining problems before you commit to a long contract. You might decide that the money saved is worth some initial problems, just make sure that you make an informed decision.

You can compare over 100 broadband deals on everyday broadband.

You may find some broadband deals not free but cheap and deserve their price!