How to Save Money With Your High-Speed Internet Service Provider
Let’s get this out of the way right up front: Internet service in the U.S. is a mess.
According to the latest Internet Access Services Report from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 40% of Americans can’t connect to the Internet at broadband speed (25 Mbps or better). About 3.9 million households – 3.7% of all those with a fixed Internet connection – can’t even connect at 3 Mbps, which Netflix considers the minimum speed needed to stream video at standard quality.
To add insult to injury, we’re paying through the nose for this lousy service. According to data from cable.co.uk, Americans pay an average of $66.17 per month for a broadband connection. Compare that to a monthly rate of $40.52 in Britain, $26.64 in Mexico, and just $9.93 in Russia.
There’s not much that you, as a consumer, can do to fix America’s Internet system, but you can at least reduce the price you pay to connect to it. A wide variety of strategies, from cutting out extras to negotiating a lower price, can get your Internet bill down to a reasonable rate – or, at least, one that’s closer to reasonable.
Not many people know that the U.S. government, Internet service providers (ISPs), and various nonprofits offer subsidies to help low-income households pay for Internet service. Examples include:
If you don’t qualify for any subsidies, the best way to get a better deal on Internet service is to contact your ISP and ask for it. Shopping for Internet service isn’t like buying groceries at the store, where the price you see on the shelf is the price you pay. ISPs hate to lose customers, and they’re usually willing to knock anywhere from $5 to $50 off your monthly bill if that’s what it takes to keep your business.
Negotiating can make a big difference in the size of your bill. An anonymous writer at Broadband Now says it’s the reason he pays $47 a month for the same Internet service plan that costs his neighbor $86. Go into the conversation armed with plenty of information about what you pay and what kinds of deals other companies are offering. Then use your best negotiating skills to get the deal you want.
Your ISP is much more likely to drop its prices if it fears losing your business to another ISP that’s cheaper. Your best opening move in the negotiation is to tell the customer service rep you found a better deal somewhere else, and then ask if they can beat it.
Unfortunately, this trick doesn’t work everywhere, because some places only have one broadband Internet provider. The FCC report shows that about 30% of all census blocks in the country have only one provider for broadband service, and 13% of all blocks don’t have any. Even for slower services of 10 to 25 Mbps, 2% of all blocks have only one available provider.
The problem is even worse than it sounds. The FCC measures whether there’s broadband service available anywhere in a census block, but as CityLab reports, there’s quite a lot of variation within blocks. So even if your neighbors have a choice of Internet providers, that doesn’t necessarily mean you do.
However, if you’re one of the lucky Americans with two or more providers to choose from, you can make them compete for your business. To find out what options you have for Internet service in your area, use the online comparison tool at BroadbandNow. Just type in your zip code, and it will show the providers available in your general area.
Next, check out each provider’s website to see what plans they offer at your address and what they cost. Many ISPs offer special deals for new customers, so the prices you see could be significantly lower than what you’re paying now. Make a note of the best price you can find from another provider and use that information to squeeze a better deal out of your current ISP.
While you’re comparing prices, it’s worth taking a moment to check out any deals your ISP is offering. ISPs sometimes offer special promotions that give you a temporary break on the price for six months or even a year, but you can only get these deals if you ask for them.
Check out the terms of each promotion carefully and make sure you know the full cost. Often, the price you see splashed across a website or print ad leaves out hidden costs like taxes or non-optional “line fees.”
Many promotional deals allow you to “lock in” a price for the first one or two years. That means your rate is guaranteed not to go up during that time, but it also means you can’t get out of your contract during that time without paying a fee. So if you find a better deal one year into your two-year contract, you won’t be able to take advantage of it. That said, experts interviewed by MarketWatch generally agree that it’s in your best interest to lock in a price if you can since rates are more likely to go up than down.
One other thing to check is what the price will be after the promotional period ends. ISPs often make a big deal about offering a special price – such as $80 a month for the first two years on a bundle that includes Internet, phone, and TV service – but they never mention that the price for the bundle will jump to $125 a month when those two years are up. Sometimes, even when you read the fine print, this price is impossible to find, so the only way to know what you’re in for is to call the ISP and ask.
Once you’ve learned all you can about deals from your ISP and its competitors and found the best one for you, call up your ISP and tell the rep you want the same deal – and if you don’t get it, you’ll switch providers. When you call, ask for the “retention department” or “customer resolutions department.” Folks in this department are tasked with holding onto customers at all costs, so they have the power to offer discounts or special deals.
The reps in the retention department are desperate to keep your business because their salaries depend on it. As Slate explains, they’re paid a low base rate, plus a bonus that depends on the percentage of customers they’re able to talk into keeping their service. This makes them a real pain to deal with if you actually want to cancel, but it comes in handy when you’re trying to squeeze your ISP for the best deal you can possibly get.
However, MarketWatch warns that this strategy can backfire if you use it too often. If you call your ISP once a year threatening to leave, but never actually do it, they’ll stop taking your threats seriously, and you’re likely to walk away with nothing.
Ideally, you should only threaten to switch companies when you’re actually prepared to follow through on the threat if your ISP doesn’t give you a deal. If you know you want to keep your existing ISP, take the opposite tack and play up your loyalty to the company. Stress how long you’ve been with them and how much you like them, and ask them if they can give you a special deal for being such a devoted, long-term customer.
Whichever approach you take when dealing with your ISP, always be polite to the person on the other end of the line. If you get angry while you’re trying to negotiate – even if you have a legitimate cause for your anger, such as long wait times or problems with your service – reps will be less willing to deal with you.
Of course, being polite isn’t the same as being a pushover. A primer by BroadbandNow on negotiating with your ISP says the two most important rules are “be polite” and “be insistent.” Keep reiterating what you want, but do so calmly and courteously. If the first rep you get refuses to work with you, ask politely for a transfer to their supervisor.
Alexandra Dickinson, an expert negotiator interviewed by CNBC, says the best approach in any negotiation is to avoid being either “a bully or a door mat.” Be firm, but not combative. Dickinson recommends starting your requests with the phrase “I would like” as opposed to “I want,” “I need,” or “I deserve.” This sets a tone that’s both direct and respectful.
Unfortunately, following these rules doesn’t guarantee that your ISP will be willing to give you a deal. That’s what happened to me back in 2010 when I tried to negotiate a lower price with my ISP. I told them about a competing offer from another company that was $30 lower, politely asked if they could offer me a similar deal, and asked to speak to a supervisor when the original rep couldn’t help me. No dice. They just weren’t willing to cut their prices, no matter what I said.
But here’s where I made my mistake: I assumed their answer was final. What I should have done instead, according to MarketWatch and the team at BroadbandNow, was to call back a few days later and talk to someone else. Different customer service reps might have access to different deals, so repeatedly calling over the course of a few days can sometimes get you a better deal. The promotions ISPs offer also change frequently, so by the time you call back, there might be a new promotion that wasn’t on offer the first time you called.
Even if your ISP does make a deal with you, don’t let that be the last word on the subject. Often, an ISP will offer you a promotional rate that’s only good for six months or so, hoping you won’t remember when it expires. To avoid letting that happen, put a note on your calendar to call the ISP again in six months or whenever the promotional period is up. You can then go through the same process to negotiate your rate all over again.
Another time to call your ISP is when you’ve been having any problems with your service. Every ISP has slowdowns and service outages now and then, and it’s perfectly reasonable to ask for a credit on your statement when this happens. After all, why should you pay for a full month of Internet service when you were only able to get online for 28 of those days?
Keep a log of all the problems you have with your Internet service. Every time your Internet goes down or slows to a crawl, make a note of the date and time, then check throughout the day and note at what time your service returns to normal. At the end of the month, call the ISP and ask them to give you credit for these lost hours of service.
BroadbandNow also recommends checking your Internet speed periodically to see if it lives up to your ISP’s promises. You can do this by going to speedtest.net and clicking the “Go” button. In about a minute, the site will show you your Internet response (or “ping”) time, your download speed, and your upload speed. If you find you’re regularly getting significantly lower speeds than you’re paying for, call your ISP and ask them to either bring your speed up to scratch or lower your bill.
ISPs as a whole don’t have the best track record for customer service. Often, an ISP’s sales department will offer you a deal over the phone, but when you get your bill, you discover your promised savings have vanished. If you call back to complain, the billing department will say it has no record of the offer, and you’ll be right back where you started.
To avoid this problem, when you call your ISP to negotiate prices, make a recording of the phone call. Digital Trends has guides explaining how to record a call on an Android phone and an iPhone. Make sure to tell the rep up front that you’ll be recording the call, as it’s illegal in some states to record a phone call without the consent of all parties on the line.
After hanging up the phone, save a copy of the recording on your phone or computer. As an alternative, you can conduct your negotiation with the ISP via web chat and keep a transcript of the conversation. Either way, if your ISP tries to weasel out of the deal you negotiated, you can produce your recording or transcript as proof that the company agreed to it.
If all this sounds like too much work for you, or if you’re not that confident in your negotiating skills, you can bring in a third-party service to do the haggling. Companies like BillCutterz and BillFixers call up the companies you deal with – including cell phone companies, utility companies, and ISPs – and bargain with them on your behalf. All you have to do is send them your monthly bills and let them deal with the phone menus, hold music, and evasive customer service reps.
If the company doesn’t succeed in saving you any money on your bills, it doesn’t charge you anything for its service, so it costs you nothing to try. However, if it manages to get you a discount, the company bills you for half of the amount you save over the first year. So before you use one of these services, ask yourself:
Of course, if you’ve already tried negotiating your Internet bill on your own and had no luck, then you have nothing to lose by trying a service. They might succeed in saving you some money, and if they don’t, it costs you nothing.
When you talk to your ISP, be prepared for them to try to “upsell” you on your service. If you call in to negotiate a price on a basic, 25-Mbps Internet connection with no extras, a clever rep could convince you it’s a much better value to pay twice as much for a bundle that includes cable, phone, and 100-Mbps Internet. Be prepared for this ploy by knowing which services you really need and want and refusing to pay for anything else.
Many ISPs now offer connections at speeds of 100 Mbps or greater. A few even offer lightning-fast gigabit connections with a speed of 1 Gbps. This kind of speed sounds like it should be worth paying more for, but chances are, it won’t actually do you any good.
The amount of speed you need depends on what you’re doing online. Here are the speeds experts recommend for different applications:
Of course, these are the speeds required for just one connection. If you have one person streaming HD video in the living room, one playing League of Legends in the bedroom, and a third surfing the Web in the kitchen, you’ll need a total of around 12 Mbps to handle it all. According to Tom’s Guide, a package with a 20 Mbps download speed and 5 Mbps upload speed is good enough for most families.
The top-of-of-the-line 100 Mbps and gigabit connections many providers are now offering are overkill for most households. However, too much speed is better than too little, so you shouldn’t automatically opt for the cheapest, lowest-speed connection, either. Your best approach is to look at what you do online, figure out how much speed you really need, and then buy the cheapest package that meets your needs.
If you’re a light user who mainly uses the Internet for email, social media, and streaming the occasional video in standard definition, try asking your ISP if it offers an “economy tier” service. These plans have speeds of around 3 Mbps and can cost $15 to $25 less per month than a standard plan, according to BroadbandNow. If you find this isn’t enough speed for you, you can always call back in a month and ask to switch back to the standard service.
ISPs are always eager to sell “bundled” plans if they can. Typical bundles include “double plays” with TV and Internet on one bill and “triple plays” that include TV, Internet, and phone service. ISPs can make more money selling you two or three services instead of one, so they’re willing to sell you the bundle for less than you’d pay for each service separately.
For instance, Verizon’s current triple play deal (good only for new customers through July 25, 2018) includes gigabit Internet service, TV, and phone, all at $80 a month for the first two years. Gigabit Internet service by itself costs around $80 a month, and TV service by itself costs around $75. That means if you buy the bundle, you get $155 worth of monthly TV and Internet service for only $80 (a $75 savings) with your phone service thrown in for free.
However, a bundle isn’t a bargain if you’re paying extra for services you don’t need. For instance, Verizon also offers a standalone Internet plan of 100 Mbps for only $40 a month. So if all you really need is Internet service, and 100 Mbps is enough speed for you, you’re not saving $75 a month with the bundle; you’re paying $40 a month more than you need to.
Even if you currently have all three services, it’s possible you don’t need all of them. With so many different streaming media devices and services out there these days, it’s easier than ever to cut the cord and enjoy cheaper entertainment without cable TV. Similarly, if you use your cell phone for all your calls, you can probably drop your landline phone service. So consider not only what you have right now, but also what you actually use.
In some cases, it can be worth buying a service you don’t need if the bundle is cheaper than buying the services you need separately. For instance, when my husband and I first signed up for phone and Internet service at our house, we were offered a triple play package for $85, $5 less than it would have cost us to buy phone and Internet service separately. So even though we didn’t need or want cable TV, the bundle was a better deal for us.
However, when the promotional period ended, the price for all three services jumped to $130, making it cheaper for us to drop the TV service and keep just the phone and Internet. This goes to show that when you sign up for a bundle, you need to make sure you read (or hear) all the fine print. Find out how long the special bundled rate is good for, and how much the price will be when the promotion ends. Also, ask how high the “early termination” fee will be if you decide to cancel or drop one of your services during the lock-in period.
Take a careful look at your Internet bill, and you’ll probably see a charge of $5 to $15 for the rental of your modem, router, or both. That doesn’t sound like much until you consider that it’s possible to buy a combination modem and router for between $60 and $180 at a store like Best Buy. If you buy your own equipment instead of using your ISP’s, it could pay for itself in less than a year.
However, this money-saving tip doesn’t work for everyone. Buying your own modem and router has a few drawbacks that can make it more hassle than it’s worth. For example:
If you choose to rent your modem and router from the ISP, the company will install them for you. This service typically costs somewhere between $40 and $100 on top of your regular monthly bill.
However, there are a couple of ways to avoid this fee. Some ISPs, such as Comcast, give you an option to install the equipment yourself. The company provides a kit with everything you need to get set up, including instructions. There may still be a shipping charge for delivery of the modem and router, but it should be much smaller than the cost of installation.
Another option is to simply ask the ISP to waive the fee when you first sign up for service. There’s no guarantee they’ll say yes, but it costs nothing to ask. If you succeed, it could be the fastest $100 you ever saved.
As noted above, many Americans don’t have several providers to choose from, but most places have at least two providers for connections of 10 Mbps or higher. So if you’ve tried everything you can think of, and your ISP refuses to reduce your bill, your best bet is to try to get a better deal from another provider.
Start by checking BroadbandNow to see which companies offer service in your area, if you haven’t done this already. It’s worth considering all providers on the list, not just the big brands like Comcast and Spectrum. According to BroadbandNow, small startups, such as Ting and Starry, can often provide high-speed connections at a lower cost than the big ISPs. Even when a small ISP isn’t the cheapest option, it could offer the best value, with higher speed and better customer service than its larger competitors.
Another option is to drop your fixed-line broadband altogether. If you do most of your connecting to the Internet through a smartphone or tablet, you might not need a physical line to bring Internet service into your home. In that case, your best option is to look for a cheaper cell phone plan that can provide enough data for all your Internet needs.
Switching Internet providers can be a hassle. Here are a few problems you might face, and some ways to avoid them:
Experts offer one final tip for getting a good deal on your Internet service: be a good customer. Don’t hesitate to complain if there’s a problem, but be polite in dealing with the customer service reps and always, always pay your bill on time. ISPs are much more eager to hold onto a customer who’s been with them for a long time and always pays promptly than a newcomer with a sketchy payment history. The more your ISP likes you, the more willing it will be to cut a deal with you to keep your business.
How much do you pay for Internet service? Do you know any good tips for keeping the cost down?
Updated: June 26, 2018
Categories: Family & Home, Home Improvement, Lifestyle, Money Management, Spending and Saving, Technology
Amy Livingston is a freelance writer who can actually answer yes to the question, “And from that you make a living?” She has written about personal finance and shopping strategies for a variety of publications, including ConsumerSearch.com, ShopSmart.com, and the Dollar Stretcher newsletter. She also maintains a personal blog, Ecofrugal Living, on ways to save money and live green at the same time.
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