Defy the Credit Crunch Tip #3 – Get Free Internet
Posted on 04. Nov, 2008 by Mike Halsey in saving money
There’s a lot of money to be made out of selling us internet access, just look around you at all the 3G internet dongles on offer and ‘exciting’ new technologies such as BT’s internet televison offering. These companies all know the world is turning towards free internet access for all and need to make as much money out of us as possible before that happens. BT especially needs capital to roll-out the next generation of high-speed access, otherwise our connection speeds will forever languish around the 4Mb access mark when some countries are already enjoying a heady 100Mb. That would be terrible for home users and a disaster for UK businesses.
But it’s easy to get free internet access right now. The big players will put out scare stories, telling you that the connections are unreliable and/or slow. The fact of the matter is though, it’s simply not true. I have had free broadband from TalkTalk (the carphone Warehouse) now for several years without a single problem or glitch. In addition to this I get all my phone calls free including international calls, all for about £23 a month including VAT.
Several mobile companies will give you free broadband if you pay a certain amount on a mobile phone contract with them every month. This amount will vary with providers. Sky also offer broadband to subscribers of their satellite TV services.
All of these lock you into additional services, I’m with TalkTalk because I’d always want the free national and international calls anyway. You’d need to check the small print for these services. Sky have a cap on their service that would make it unsuitable for gaming for instance, though this may change in the future.
It’s well worth shopping around as there will probably be a free service that suits you somewhere that’s a lot more reliable than the big companies, who are charging upwards of £15 or £20 a month for their broadband service alone, would like you to believe.
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