Any UK ISP offer contract lengths under 18 months?

Do any UK ISPs offer contract lengths under 18 months?

My parents signed up to Plusnet a year ago and they only offered 18-month contracts. That's too long for me.

In reply to a post by kingmustard:

Do any UK ISPs offer contract lengths under 18 months?

Using this page to search for contract lengths under 6 months gives over 30 hits... some may be inaccurate (tbb rely on the ISP to inform them of changes) but the basic answer to your question is yes- loads of 'em.


eta- You won't find many (if any) under 12 months if you want FTTC, that's a limitation effectively imposed on the ISP by BT.

Edited by billford (Fri 09-Aug-13 08:05:29)

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by kingmustard:

Do any UK ISPs offer contract lengths under 18 months?

Using this page to search for contract lengths under 6 months gives over 30 hits... some may be inaccurate (tbb rely on the ISP to inform them of changes) but the basic answer to your question is yes- loads of 'em.

Excellent link, thank you 12 months is fine, but 18 months is not.

Now to discover which ISPs don't throttle speeds at any time!

In reply to a post by kingmustard:

Now to discover which ISPs don't throttle speeds at any time!

That's not so easy to answer, it can depend not only on the ISP but also the particular contract you choose. Also, an ISP may not actively throttle anything but congestion at peak times may be a problem if they've kept prices down by skimping on capacity.

But a broad guide is that the smaller ones don't, and the cheaper it is the more likely it is to suffer somewhere.

As in most areas of life- you get what you pay for

The best ISP I ever had was AAISP & they are still 30 days notice. If I was ever forced to use a telephone line again I wouldnt' even consider going anywhere else. Not cheap but worth every penny!

In reply to a post by armshead:

The best ISP I ever had was AAISP & they are still 30 days notice. If I was ever forced to use a telephone line again I wouldnt' even consider going anywhere else. Not cheap but worth every penny!

They don't offer unlimited and I definitely need (and use) that feature.

In reply to a post by kingmustard:

They don't offer unlimited and I definitely need (and use) that feature.

Unlimited on an 80/20 FTTC connection means (in theory) that the ISP has to price the contract for something like 25 Tera-Bytes/month... I think you need to bring your sights down a bit

"Unlimited" is just a word. Whatever it is you need AAISP can & will supply it within the limits of your connection. They are fair on limits, do not immediately clobber you if you go over any month & carry a proportion of unused forward to the next month.

In reply to a post by armshead:

"Unlimited" is just a word.

I wouldn't argue with that- my contract with IDNet includes 100GB/month download, if I go over that (even waay over it) then nothing will happen except that my bank account will suffer (to the tune of £1/GB) for the excess usage.

So in a very real sense it's an unlimited connection... but most people wouldn't class it as one.

The point I was trying to make is that downloading large amounts of data can get expensive.


eta- just found out that IDNet do an unlimited 80/20 contract- ~£120/month. Less than I expected.

Edited by billford (Fri 09-Aug-13 09:40:05)

In reply to a post by kingmustard:

Do any UK ISPs offer contract lengths under 18 months?

My parents signed up to Plusnet a year ago and they only offered 18-month contracts. That's too long for me.

It's also wrong, as Plusnet themselves do monthly contracts too.

Broadband without a 12 or 18 month contract: There's a £50 activation charge but we'll reduce this to £25 if you add one of our phone packages to your order. You can use your own router if it's compatible, or you can take our router (you'll just pay £5.99 P&P). Minimum term of 30 days.

You mean http://www.thinkbroadband.com/isp/plusnet/package/12...

In reply to a post by kingmustard:

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by kingmustard:

Do any UK ISPs offer contract lengths under 18 months?

Using this page to search for contract lengths under 6 months gives over 30 hits... some may be inaccurate (tbb rely on the ISP to inform them of changes) but the basic answer to your question is yes- loads of 'em.

Excellent link, thank you 12 months is fine, but 18 months is not.

Now to discover which ISPs don't throttle speeds at any time!

BT satisfy both of those requirements - 9 month unlimited unthrottled ADSL or fibre service if you're a student. Although how they actually check that is limited to a "I confirm I am a student" checkbox at the beginning of the order process...

I should point out that unlike the other deals mentioned which just offer broadband on a short/reduced contract, this is the only one I know of that also gives you a short contract on the phone line as well, no point having a 1-month broadband if you're still committed to the phone line for 12 months...

several ISPs offer monthly phone line rental - IDnet, Zen, Plusnet (LOL) "Plusnet Broadband Phone has a minimum period of 1 month"

The majority of ISPs have always been monthly for many things, it's the mass market ones that love their long minimum contract terms.

BT if student 9 months.

AAISP 6 months.

Both on FTTC as well, where as usually shorter term is limited to ADSL.

Edited by Chrysalis (Fri 09-Aug-13 14:05:12)

In reply to a post by billford:

Using this page

Aren't the Ratings in that page misleading? Since Flash tester we've been unable to rate easily. EE's [no data] about corresponds with Flash testing.

Numbers of ratings are up since the flash tester changed.

Registered users can rate their connections via http://www.thinkbroadband.com/rate.html and if memory is working right, we send out a monthly reminder.

Can see no Entanet resellers mentioned. From what I understand they have reasonable migration costs, no throttling and good non peak Unlimited periods.
8pm - 8am weekdays and all weekend.
I do not enter over 1 month contracts as, problems can occur if service poor.

Look at Xilo, Freeola,
Maybe not cheapest but worth a look.

In reply to a post by flippery:

Can see no Entanet resellers mentioned. From what I understand they have reasonable migration costs, no throttling and good non peak Unlimited periods.
8pm - 8am weekdays and all weekend.
I do not enter over 1 month contracts as, problems can occur if service poor.

Look at Xilo, Freeola,
Maybe not cheapest but worth a look.

Freeola actually 7pm - 7am and all weekends unlimited, plus free hosting and migration etc. With so much free time I find the 40Gb package more than enough, even when streaming cricket on two PCs throughout the house all day.
Also real good latency and no contract tie-in. http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/46d5c64a7a8...

Edited by professor973 (Fri 09-Aug-13 16:51:20)

In reply to a post by kingmustard:

Do any UK ISPs offer contract lengths under 18 months?

My parents signed up to Plusnet a year ago and they only offered 18-month contracts. That's too long for me.

Something nobody has mentioned yet is Sky. No throttling or slowdowns at peak times. It works the same at 3am as it does at 8pm. I am on fibre and I get 9Mb/s on torrents. Their ADSL packages are priced extremely competitively. Youtube never buffers & there's no delay scrolling through Youtube videos. iPlayer, ITV player etc all good too. On some other ISPs even with high speeds, due to bad peering streaming can struggle. I am seeing this with BT currently.

I use the Sky router (I also have just added some of my own 5ghz routers but that's a different subject). With the Sky router I can plug it in and it doesn't go wrong. Currently I am sitting on 3 months of the Sky router being plugged in, without a reboot and my internet connection hasn't dropped once during that time. I have 6 laptops, 1 desktop, a smart tv, 2 wireless printers, 5 smartphones, a sky wireless on demand receiver, until a week ago all of this was connecting to my sky router without an issue. I have since added some 5Ghz access points (just to be a bit fancy) but didn't unplug the sky router during this!

Sky have a commitment to not slow your speeds down on all LLU packages. This includes evenings.
It's half price for a year currently on ADSL.

http://www.sky.com/shop/broadband-talk/
As an alternative Plusnet do 1 month contracts if you are in a market 3 exchange.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Fri 09-Aug-13 16:38:56)

Ah, OK! For some reason I had my Ratings Reminder OFF. I don't remember doing it and had no reason to do so. It's now ON. EDIT: Hence EE are missing some important data .

Last requested rating seems to be Dec. 2012, just a month before I started using Flash tester.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Fri 09-Aug-13 16:45:17)

In reply to a post by yarwell:

several ISPs offer monthly phone line rental - IDnet, Zen, Plusnet (LOL) "Plusnet Broadband Phone has a minimum period of 1 month"

Well OK, IDnet has a 1-month minimum term on phone but charge £120 installation, so in one month you're paying the same as you would for 1 year on BT. So rather than have a 12-month minimum term they basically charge you 12 months from the outset, over the course of a year you end up paying double. Zen seem to be deliberately hiding their connection charges but I assume they're the same.

As for "Plusnet Broadband Phone", you realise that's a VOIP service on top of Plusnet Broadband right? Which requires you taking their broadband (for 12 months+) *and* a phone line (for 12 months+).

Use of the Service

The Service is intended for sending and receiving voice transmissions over the Internet. Customers understand that:
The service is not intended as a like-for-like replacement for PSTN telephone services.
Customers must retain a PSTN telephone line in order to use the Service.

Edited by deleted (Fri 09-Aug-13 17:43:40)

Zen have no connection charge to hide, along with no contract tie-in and line rental at £11.22 without the need for a year up front.

In reply to a post by qasdfdsaq:

Well OK, IDnet has a 1-month minimum term on phone but charge £120 installation

Only for a new line, not an existing one "migrating" to them. The OP wasn't specific other than about contract length.

As for "Plusnet Broadband Phone", you realise that's a VOIP service

My bad, I glazed over trying to find the minimum contract terms on their web site.

Sky is the answer of you don't want to spend a fortune. Unlimited, no throttling and £10/month for adsl (£7.50/month if you take TV) or £20/month for a 40/10 fttc connection.

I'm on the £20/month fibre connection and get the expected speeds 24/7.

In reply to a post by _Resonance_:

Sky is the answer of you don't want to spend a fortune. Unlimited, no throttling and £10/month for adsl (£7.50/month if you take TV) or £20/month for a 40/10 fttc connection.

I'm on the £20/month fibre connection and get the expected speeds 24/7.

Available LLU only.
Connect is £17 for 40gb. Not recommended

minimum contract term for Sky ?

12 months I believe

In reply to a post by yarwell:

My bad, I glazed over trying to find the minimum contract terms on their web site.

In reference to www.plus.net/home-broadband/broadband-only/:

* Pricing

Plusnet Essentials
�With a contract: If you live in a low cost area it costs £8.49 a month, if you live outside one of these areas it costs £15.49 a month
�With no contract: If you live in a low cost area it costs £10.99 a month, if you live outside one of these areas it costs £17.99 a month

Plusnet Unlimited:
�With a contract: If you live in a low cost area it costs £12.49 a month, if you live outside one of these areas it costs £19.49 a month
�With no contract: If you live in a low cost area it costs £14.99 a month, if you live outside one of these areas it costs £21.99 a month

EDIT: Anyway PN contracts as now 12 months and you can get cheap deals on that if you take their landline too.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Fri 09-Aug-13 20:16:35)

If you want a monthly contract you could try either Vivaciti or Freeola.

Be aware though that while Vivaciti will absorb the Shared Metallic Path Facility migration fee when you migrate in if you then migrate out you will have to pay a connection fee to move the broadband portion back to BT Wholesale or between LLU providers.

If you want to keep such costs to a minimum you might be best placed to look at Freeola as mentioned.

Personally I'd recommend Xilo as the O2 Wholesale unlimited product works out about 3 quid cheaper per month than Vivaciti although I did have to pay £48 including VAT up front plus one months service charge to connect.

anything that says "no contract" is legally invalid IMHO.

Yes, in this context it means with a short notice contract , but what about PAYG mobiles & dial-up?

In reply to a post by yarwell:

several ISPs offer monthly phone line rental - IDnet, Zen, Plusnet (LOL) "Plusnet Broadband Phone has a minimum period of 1 month"

As has been said, PlusNet Broadband Phone is VOIP. However they have PlusNet Talk, which is PSTN phone just like all the others. (And I haven't seen any mention by the OP of phone line rental anyway).

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 09-Aug-13 22:09:13)

all have contracts, signed or not, explicit or implied. Otherwise what obligation is there to provide a service or pay for it ?

PAYG mobile for examlpe - http://www.vodafone.co.uk/about-this-site/terms-and-... may call it "an agreement" but it's a legally binding contract. "This agreement is under English law" etc

Expanding on what you say, the exchange of goods and/or services for money forms a de facto contract. Without a contract, Terms & Conditions could not exist.

I would be kinda tempted to try one of these "no contract" services and then decline to pay anything, after all there's no contract requiring me to do so Dumb Britain.

Hehe !

Or even for a consideration!

The point I was making with PAYG is that there is no obligation to pay anything, but, yes, once having paid something, either by top-up or by dialling a chargeable #, then there is an obligation on the supplier to supply their services in return. Therefore the contract exists from the get-go to cover this eventuality.

Yes, I agree that in all these cases a contract always exists. Indeed it always bugs me here when users say they are 'out of contract' when all they mean is that they have exceeded the Min. Period of the contract and are now just subject to short notice.

No doubt the 'no contract' contracts you to pay the month in advance. You don't pay you get no service for the next month.

P.S.: Why are we worrying about 1 month contracts? THe OP only wanted a contract below 18 m. PN would now satisfy him with a 12m contract despite his parents being forced into 18m in the past.

ADSL24 offer 1 month contracts but not on that list

There may be some but it may be more expensive as you may have to pay higher one off charges. The longer contract tend to recover some of the costs over the 18 month contract

I would steer clear of IDNET. Contrary to what you will hear in these forums, their support absolutely sucks. They just make it up as they go along, and crawl along at a snails pace.

If you are lucky enough to get a good provision, with no need for support - you'll be OK. But I've had three provisions from them, and each one has been screwed up. They always blame BT, but it doesn't seem to happen to anyone else quite as often.

Consider trying zen.co.uk instead. They actually know their stuff.