The cost of broadband internet has been lowering for the last five years. This trend has sustained itself even in the face of recent inflationary periods.
Broadband internet is essential for modern life, but you don’t have to pay an arm and a leg to afford a good enough internet connection. Still, you should be careful when choosing an ISP and make sure you’re not being over-promised. There are also some decisions you can make to reduce your total cost of the internet service.
In this article, we go through six ways to get the best value for money with your internet connection. Let’s get started.
Skip FTTH for Now
Fiber to the home (FTTH) is the fastest internet connection you can get right now. A fiber-optic cable runs to your house and connects you to the splitter, the central office, and then the World Wide Web. Fiber-optic cable can be used to transfer data at speeds in petabytes per second, which is why it’s considered the future of the internet.
Right now, the higher bandwidth of FTTH can allow for upload speeds as high as download speeds. Fiber-powered backbone infrastructure at the ISP’s end can also significantly lower network congestion, allowing more consistent speeds.
However, FTTH is very expensive and not widely available. Most people also don’t need some of its benefits, such as high upload speeds. An alternative and much more cost-effective way to get the benefits of fiber internet is to choose an ISP with a fiber-rich network. You won’t get a fiber cable to your home but you’ll still get consistent high speeds with a good network uptime.
Choose a Local ISP
ISPs that operate in different states often have the same rates for different areas. Providing internet connections in some areas is less costly for ISPs than in others, but they have to keep the prices the same to keep their marketing material consistent.
A local ISP can offer the lowest price possible without worrying about the cost in other states. For instance in Texas, Grande Communications is one of the best-known high-speed ISPs exclusive to the state with affordable rates.
Don’t Choose a Plan with Data Caps
Capped plans are thing of the past now. Most ISPs only market unlimited internet plans. However, some ISPs still have optional data caps of more than 1 TB per month.
This may seem too high for you to use in a month, but it’s not. If users in your house stream movies in Full HD and you have smart devices connected to the cloud, you may run out of data more often than not. With overage fees, you may end up paying far more than the cost of an unlimited plan. Choose an unlimited plan unless you’re certain you won’t exceed the data cap.
Consider a Term Contract
Many ISPs don’t offer any term contracts as people might view it as them trying to entice customers when their service isn’t good enough to retain them. However, term contracts allow ISPs to increase their confidence in their recurring income, which saves money and allows them to offer you lower prices. This is why some reputable ISPs still offer term contracts. If you trust the ISP you’re considering and they offer term contracts with discounted service, go for it.
Only Get the Speeds You Need
An average American house doesn’t need 1 Gbps speed right now. Even above-average homes only need a top speed of 500 Mbps. If you’re choosing an ISP with a fiber-rich network, you will get close to the advertised top speeds even at peak times. Most people will never use the high upload speeds offered by FIIT connections either. Only get the speed you need and don’t overspend.
Choose a Mesh Wi-Fi Instead of a High-Power Router
If you have a large house or multiple floors, an average router may not be able to provide coverage throughout the house. You may be recommended a high-power or gaming Wi-Fi to ensure better coverage.
The problem is that it takes a lot of power to increase the Wi-Fi range. To double the range, you need four times as much power—and even with a powerful Wi-Fi router, you’ll have dead sports where you can’t access the internet. So you’re spending more electricity and still not getting total coverage.
A Mesh Wi-Fi system uses multiple routers called nodes to provide Wi-Fi coverage from multiple access points. It’s like having multiple routers in the house, except they all form a single network. Each router only covers a portion of the house, so they don’t have to consume a lot of power. They also limit blind spots as other nodes can provide coverage where one can’t.
Your devices automatically connect to the nearest node or the one with the strongest signal. Grande partners with eero—the leading mesh Wi-Fi company run by Amazon—to provide you with eero Mesh Wi-Fi at lower rates with Grande Internet. Contact Grande customer service to learn more.
Get Grande Internet at a Promotional Price
Grande Internet is available at a promotional price of just $25 per month. You usually get a promotional period of up to 12 months with ISPs, Grande is offering a price lock on their service for 2 years. Dial 844-381-0817 to learn more.