Useful broadband information
Broadband Bandwidth
Bandwidth is likely to be the most significant limiting factor for students - it’s amazing how quickly a few of you can reach your download limit, rendering your connection useless - or worse, incurring a massive bill.
I'm on my own, or it's just the two of us
In this case, you may be able to survive on a bandwidth-capped plan. This entirely depends on how much you download per month.
I'm sharing with friends
If you’re sharing in a student house, we really don’t recommend going on a bandwidth-capped plan.
What’s worse, you may have no control over how much your housemates download, so you could be tied into a contract that causes massive problems.
We’d recommend an unlimited plan, but check the company’s reasonable use policy to make sure “unlimited” isn’t a paltry amount
We reckon the average student could use about 2.1GB per week.
Broadband Speeds
I'm on my own
If you’re on your own, will you be streaming movies, TV or music? As a guideline, BBC iPlayer streams at 1.5Mbps, with the HD service going up to 3.2Mbps - so you should get a package above this speed if the answer is yes.
I’m sharing with mates
If you’re sharing your student broadband connection, you should bare this in mind when choosing broadband.
A few users browsing Wikipedia will be fine on all connections, but 4-5 students streaming Spotify could bring a slower connection to a grinding halt. As a guide, divide the speed (eg. 8Mbps) by the number of housemates (eg 5) and decide if that’s an acceptable speed (1.6Mbps - which would be fine for most students).
Contract lengths and line rental
Most students have a 48 week contract, running from September - July. That’s 11 months. For a few months of that, you might not be using your broadband connection due to holidays.
You could get a pay as you go or short term contract, but these tend to attract a connection fee (usually around £25). Since you’ll have to “connect” twice, the costs tend to outweigh the benefit, and you might as well just take out a contract for one year. Don’t fall into the trap of taking out an 18 month broadband contract.
Line rental and free calls
Most providers require a BT line (£11.54 at time of writing), which tends to be an additional cost to the quoted amount.
Alternatively, some providers encourage you to pay them for line rental, making it a bit cheaper. You could also get free calls.
Be careful with a phone in a student house. Unless all calls are free, which is very unlikely, you could have a tough time finding out who ran up the phone bill when it comes to bill time!
About Us
BroadbandforStudents.co.uk was setup in 2010 to help students across the UK to compare the best student broadband offers from one location. We work closely with some of the biggest broadband suppliers in the UK to help students recieve the very best deals as from our own experience money can be tight when studying.
Student Broadband is essential for any modern day universtiy student. The obvious being to be able to use for university work, checking university emails and of course Google when researching! But most of all the ability to connect to the internet to check your Facebook or Twitter, or to stay in touch with friends and family.
Here at BroadbandforStudents.co.uk we hand pick the best offers for students, whether its 9 month contract student broadband or the best download speed for the cheapest price.
Other Services
We also compare other services than just broadband. When your student budget is low, and you just want to stay in and enjoy a movie on TV - then we also compare Student TV packages along with broadband
Student Mobile broadband is also a very popular service between students. If you just want to get broadband of your own and want it with you everywhere you go, then visit our student mobile broadband offers page to compare the best package for you
