The best broadband deal is always far more than one great feature such as the ideal speed, a huge discount or the fairest fair use policy.
The perfect broadband for your needs is a delicate recipe formed of many different aspects of a service in different proportions so what is the perfect recipe for the best broadband deal?
The first thing to bear in mind when looking for broadband deals is that they're hugely dependent on exact area.
A postcode or phone number search can determine which providers and which packages are available to you. Note that some providers may have certain deals available to some places and not to others.
When it comes to sky or virgin, for example, there are fast broadband options available in certain places but those in rural areas tend to have to pay higher prices as well as experience slower speeds since when there is less competition in the exchange there is no incentive for providers to lower their prices.
So before you start your perfect recipe, take a look at which ingredients you actually have to work with. And bear in mind that it may be less than you think.
Fibre or cable broadband which is super fast is only available to a small proportion of the country (though a much larger percentage of the population) as any BT Infinity review worth its salt will tell you.
If you can't access super fast or even fast ADSL (speeds of up to 24Mb), then, it's likely that the actual broadband speed you will receive shouldn't be part of our perfect recipe. There is simply too little to choose from.
That's an instance where you can take in or out an ingredient based on your local area.
Far more important are the basic ingredients on which you must not compromise. These are: cost and length of contract.
Getting out of a broadband contract is notoriously difficult within a few months and some can last as long as eighteen months or even a couple of years.
A contract can be expensive to get into which brings us onto the second point, which is cost.
Keeping costs low is important because overpaying for a service is pointless.
This especially applies to broadband allowances - estimating usage properly by working out how much time you spend on different assignments on the internet can save a lot of money in the long term.