BT will PAY YOU up to £100 if you ditch your current broadband deal

If you're unsure about the exact broadband speed you need in your home. We've put together the average download speeds for an hour-long television show episode in Standard Definition (SD), roughly 450MB in size.

• 69Mbps, the average broadband speed in the UK: 56 seconds
• 150Mbps, the lowest speed available with most full-fibre packages: 24 seconds
• 500Mbps, widely available from all full-fibre providers: 7 seconds
• 1Gbps (or 1,000Mbps) is not available from all broadband companies: 4 seconds

Full Fibre 300 comes with a generous £70 Gift Card. Upgrading to the Full Fibre 500 plan, with its 500Mbps download speed, for £39.99 a month will only net you a £50 Gift Card — so the Full Fibre 300 package is particularly generous.

With the latest batch of deals, BT has also waived its £11.99 setup fee on some full-fibre broadband plans.

BT charges £30.99 a month for Full Fibre 300, but how does that compare to the nearest competition?

Sky Broadband charges £28 a month for its Full Fibre 150 plan — rising to £32 for its Full Fibre 500 plan.

Likewise, TalkTalk doesn't offer a package with the same 300Mbps speeds, but it charges £28 a month for its Full Fibre 150 plan — rising to £35 for its Full Fibre 500 plan.

Plusnet charges £26.99 a month for its Full Fibre 145 plan — and includes a £50 Gift Card too. It's Full Fibre 300 plan is slightly cheaper than BT too, costing £28.99 a month. But there's no Gift Card with this one, so while you'll save £48 over the course of a two-year contract compared to the same package from BT... that saving is negated by the £70 Gift Card you'll receive.

Meanwhile, Virgin Media has slashed the cost of its M250 broadband down to £27.99 a month.

This full-fibre plan unlocks download speeds of 264Mbps. Not fast enough? Virgin Media's M500 fibre broadband package costs £32.99 a month — just £2 more than the BT deal, but still more expensive than the same price as Sky Broadband.

However, there's no Gift Card to be found here. Also, it's worth noting that Virgin Media operates on its own full-fibre network. While the rest of the brands above — Plusnet, TalkTalk, Vodafone, EE, Sky Broadband, BT, and others — all rely on broadband cables owned and operated by Openreach, making switching between them guaranteed, you'll need to ensure that Virgin Media is connected to your address.

Thankfully, if you're lucky enough to have both major nationwide full-fibre broadband networks at your address, switching between them is now much, much simpler. After multiple delays, a new hassle-free switchover system started to slowly come online across the UK in the autumn of last year.

Under the new system, dubbed One Touch Switch, broadband customers will only need to contact their new supplier to initiate the change. The new broadband firm will handle all aspects of the switch, including terminating the existing contract and organising the installation date for the new broadband supplier.

If that sounds familiar, it's because this seamless behind-the-scenes experience already exists... but only for those who move between brands that operate on Openreach cables, like BT, EE, Sky, TalkTalk, and Plusnet, to name just a few.

With the introduction of 'One Touch Switch' process, Ofcom will insist those moving between full-fibre networks — like Virgin Media’s full-fibre network, which connects to roughly 16 million homes, to smaller operators like HyperOptic and Community Fibre, as well as BT-owned Openreach — enjoy the same experience.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

• Sky Mobile confirms price rise for thousands this week
• Best Sky Glass deals
• Thousands to test one-of-its-kind EE upgrade in UK
• Latest IPTV crackdown blocks millions in UK from free streams
• Sky Mobile confirms price rise

The streamlined new sign-up process eliminates the need for you to give 30 days' notice to the existing provider. Not only that, but it removes the stress of trying to sync-up the cut-off date from the old provider to the installation date from the new broadband firm — minimising the time without an internet connection.

Billing and activation dates will now be coordinated between the broadband operators in the background, further reducing the administrative burden. Best of all, if your new internet provider is unable to connect you on the date agreed, you’ll receive compensation. There's no need to take action, the money is sent automatically.