Looking for a best buy?
Best Buys are the products and services which have won our seal of approval after thorough analysis by our experts. They represent the best combination of performance, reliability and value for money of the range that we've tested.
By signing up you'll be able to instantly access Best Buy recommendations for hundreds of products and services, as well as learning about the essential features to look for to help you make the right choices.
Price £
 | 18.75 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Score
|  | ||
| Type
| PAYG, high-speed service | ||
| Website | www.metronet.co.uk | ||
| Broadband sales phone number
| 0845 140 0083 or 0114 296 5185 | ||
| Features | |||
| Speed | |||
| Maximum download speed (Mbps)
| 8.0 | ||
| Maximum upload speed Mbps
| 0·448 | ||
| Contract | |||
| Minimum contract longer than a month? | No | ||
| Minimum contract term (months)
| 1 | ||
| Equipment | |||
| Free equipment?
| No | ||
| Equipment cost£ | N/A | ||
| Equipment provided
| N/A | ||
| Equipment notes | Equipment must be purchased independently. Metronet do not sell equipment. | ||
| Switching | |||
| If a customer switches to another ISP do they get to keep this equipment?
| N/A | ||
| Switching ISP conditions | N/A | ||
| Other costs | |||
| Line activation £
| £40 on 1 month contract, free on 12 month contract | ||
| Cancellation fee £
| N/A | ||
| Cancellation fee conditions | Customers who choose free line activation based on the 12 month contract will have to pay a £40 fee if switching before the end of the contract | ||
| Bundled package?
| No | ||
| Monthly cost notes | N/A | ||
| Line rental included?
| No | ||
| Limits | |||
| Unlimited data transfer?
| No | ||
| Monthly data transfer limit (GB)
| 10 | ||
| Data transfer limit conditions
| Pay as you go up to capped price (£38.74). Upper usage limit of 23.8 GB applies. If this limit is exceeded, bandwidth will be restricted during peak hours (4pm - midnight). | ||
| Cost for usage above data transfer limit (£/GB)
| 1.50 (capped at 38.74 per month) | ||
| Is there a fair usage policy? | Yes | ||
| Fair usage policy conditions
| Applies when monthly usage exceeds £38.74: Line speed will be restricted to 128 Kbps at peak times, Peer to Peer, FTP and Usenet traffic will be blocked at peak times | ||
| Capped contention ratio
| 50 | ||
| Extras | |||
| No. of email accounts
| None | ||
| Free web space (MB)
| None | ||
| Cost of telephone support (£ per minute)
| National rate | ||
| Mac compatible
| Yes | ||
| Mac compatible notes | N/A | ||
| Free spam filters | No | ||
| Free antivirus protection | No | ||
| Webmail | Yes | ||
| Free parental controls | Yes | ||
| Is service available with a static IP address?
| Yes | ||
| Static IP details and costs
| Free for single Static IP addresses, £15 for block of 4, £30 for block of 8. | ||
| Local loop unbundled (LLU)
| No | ||
| Package cost more if not in LLU area?
| N/A | ||
| Approximate percentage of UK households covered by LLU area | N/A | ||
| Promotions/special offers | N/A | ||
| Ratings | |||
| Overall | |||
| Ease of set-up
| | ||
| Value for money
| | ||
| Help and support | |||
| Customer Service
| | ||
| On-line Help
| | ||
| Telephone Help
| | ||
| Connection | |||
| Reliability of Connection
| | ||
| Connection speed
| | ||
If you say a rating is extremely important, we'll only show you products that are rated as excellent or good. If you opt for fairly important, we'll also show you products rated as acceptable. If you choose 'Not at all' important, we'll ignore that rating.
Cost per month
This score is the percentage of people who said that, overall, they were very satisfied with the service.
Shows whether the service is PAYG, capped or uncapped, and how fast it is. 1 Mbps or less is slow, 1.1-4 Mbps is medium, 4.1-8 Mbps is high and above 8 Mbps is very high-speed.
Phone number for sales only (unless otherwise stated)
The maximum advertised speed - applies to things like surfing the web or downloading media files. Actual speed will vary depending on your distance from the exchange and the number of people online at the same time.
The maximum upload speed applies to things like sending emails or adding photos to online albums - it's often much slower than the download speed.
If you want to change company within your minimum contract you'll have to pay a hefty fee.
Whether you get your broadband equipment for free
What type of equipment you get for free, such as standard modem, router, wireless router etc.
Some companies that include equipment for free will require it back if you switch away from them - it's more of a loan than free equipment.
Some companies charge a fee for setting up your phone line to support their broadband service.
The fee you will be charged if you cancel your service within the term of your contract.
Whether the broadband service is bundled together with other services, such as telephone calls or digital TV.
Whether the bundled service includes phone line rental. All broadband packages require you to have an active phone line, which means if line rental is not included you will have to pay another company, such as BT, for line rental. BT charges between £10.50 and £12.50 for phone line rental.
Whether or not the service has a cap on the amount of data you can down- or upload every month.
The limit on any data transfer. You'll pay extra if you exceed it.
What happens if you exceed your data transfer limit. Some services have different limits depending on the time of day you use your service (eg unlimited between midnight and 6am).
If you exceed your cap, how much will you pay per GB of usage.
Most 'unlimited' broadband packages have a fair usage policy, which comes into affect if customers are slowing down the broadband speed for others, due to 'excessive usage'
The contention ratio is the maximum number of people who can be sharing your connection at a given time. This will affect the speed of your service. The lower the number, the better.
How many separate email accounts you can set up.
How much web space is provided for you to set up your own web page.
How much it costs to call the ISP's technical help line.
Whether the service is compatible with Apple Mac computers.
A static IP address will allow you to access your computer from anywhere in the world. This could be particularly useful if you work as an independent and need to access files remotely.
Not all broadband providers offer static IP addresses. You may have to pay additional monthly charges for this service with some providers.
If the service is local loop unbundled (LLU), it allows the service to offer faster speeds and lower prices, but may make it more difficult to switch away.
Some packages are either unavailable, or cost more outside of the service provider's LLU areas. Where additional costs apply outside LLU areas, we list these as separate packages.
How well the ISP did for ease of set up in our latest customer satisfaction survey.
How well the ISP did for value for money in our latest customer satisfaction survey.
How well the ISP did for customer service in our latest customer satisfaction survey.
How well the ISP did for its online technical help in our latest customer satisfaction survey.
How well the ISP did for its telephone technical help in our latest customer satisfaction survey.
How highly the ISP was rated for reliability of connection in our latest customer satisfaction survey.
How highly the ISP was rated for speed of connection in our latest customer satisfaction survey.
This is just a sample of what you can learn
in the full report. All of the pages marked
contain content that is exclusively for
subscribers. If you are a subscriber, please
log in. If not, why not sign up now?
Try Which? to access all our reports, guides and interactive features - just £1.00 for 30 days
Get instant
access to
product reviews
with a 30 day
£1.00 trial
