Why choose NOW broadband?
The provider may have made its name selling TV memberships, but how does its broadband products stack up? Let’s take a look.
- No credit checks
- Owned by Sky
- Good value and flexibility
- Unlimited broadband with no traffic management
- NOW Broadband Buddy protects your kids and your computer
No credit checks
Most broadband providers carry out credit checks before accepting you as a new customer – but not NOW Broadband.
All you need to do is set up a TV account. When you do this, the ISP checks your bank card is valid by taking 10p out of your account (you get this back). Once you’ve got a NOW TV account, it’s simple to add broadband.
So, that’s it: internet without a credit check . It could be a good option for you if you’ve had credit problems in the past or simply have a slim credit file due to being young, or new to the country.
Decent upload speeds
After its recent package revamp, you should now see the following upload speeds:
- Superfast: 11Mbps
- Full Fibre 75: 17Mbps
- Full Fibre 100: 18Mbps
- Full Fibre 300: 39Mpbs
To put this in context, Virgin Media’s upload speed on its 50Mbps Fibre Broadband is just 3Mbps.
The Hub Two is a decent router
You’ll receive a Hub Two when you sign up with the provider. This will be delivered by Royal Mail and you can install it yourself once your broadband is up and running. There’s a Hub Two set-up guide on the NOW Broadband website to help you out.
The Hub Two is very similar to Sky's Sky Hub. It’s a dual-band 802.11ac router with two 1GB LAN ports.
Owned by Sky
NOW broadband isn’t a small broadband company we know nothing about – it’s a subsidiary of telecoms giant Sky. The two brands operate completely separately and are noticeably different. Whereas Sky looks to tie customers into lengthy contracts, NOW has the opposite approach with no-contract broadband and monthly TV memberships.
NOW TV memberships offer good value and flexibility
It’s easy to add NOW TV memberships to to your internet service or vice versa. You can watch Sky content without having a satellite dish installed or committing to a lengthy contract.
There are four NOW TV memberships: Entertainment, Sport, Cinema and HAYU. Entertainment offers a mix of TV shows and movies from Sky’s various channels which are usually available for a limited time. Cinema, which costs a bit more, gives you access to over 1000 movies, including recent blockbusters, HAYU is an altogether different fish, being made up entirely of reality shows. They each cost under a tenner per month and you’ll need to cancel if you don’t want them to automatically run on to the next month.
The Sky Sports membership works in a different way: you can buy a membership for one day, or the whole month and it costs a fair bit more than NOW TV’s other options, but gives full access to all Sky Sports channels. So if you just want to watch one crucial football match, you can just buy a day membership with no need to fork out for the whole month. Daily memberships don’t need to be cancelled – they just end – but you’ll need to cancel the monthly membership.
It should be noted that watching Sky Sports via NOW TV is usually the most expensive way to get the service, so if you're planning to subscribe over a long period you're going to be much better off with a Sky Broadband and TV bundle that contains Sky Stream.
Read our expert review to see how NOW compares to other TV providers.
NOW Broadband Buddy protects your kids and your computer
You can add NOW Broadband Buddy to your account by going to 'my account' and then 'parental controls'. You can then select an age rating and choose which websites can and can’t be viewed on your broadband network.
On top of that, Broadband Buddy guards your computer and other devices against malware-infected websites and sites that try to collect your private information without your knowledge.
For an in-depth review, read our NOW Broadband review.
NOW TV and broadband deals
NOW TV easily lets you bundle NOW TV and NOW Broadband together. Simply purchase NOW Broadband and then add-on the NOW TV membership you require. To compare the latest deals, packages and add-on, use our comparison tool to check prices, contracts and broadband speeds.
How to get the best NOW Broadband deals
The provider offers a budget service with some great perks, plus the backing of Sky. Is it the right broadband provider for you? Follow these steps to figure it out.
1. Find out if you can get it
NOW Broadband is widely available across the UK, although some addresses will only be able to get standard broadband while others will be able to get fibre as well. To find out what’s available near you, simply enter your postcode at the top of the page and we’ll display a number of deals available.
2. Decide which speed is best for your household
The provider has three different speeds available to choose from:
- Superfast:
You’ll get speeds averaging 63Mbps with this option, with a minimum of 50Mbps guaranteed. It’s ideal if you’re working from home, connecting more than 10 devices or have a larger household
- Full Fibre 75:
The first of NOW's new range of full fibre packages will provide average downloads of 75Mbps, which while not much faster than the older FTTC Superfast package, is also likely to be more reliable, being delivered via the latest FTTP technology
- Full Fibre 100:
You’ll get speeds averaging 100Mbps, as the name suggests (and you might see higher than that). The minimum guaranteed speed is 90Mbps. This is where the speeds start to get more serious and should be adequate for most households, even those with streaming and work-from-home requirements
- Full Fibre 300:
Recently launched, NOW Full Fibre 300 offers speeds which could go well over 300Mbps, with a guaranteed minimum of 200Mbps. Faster Full Fibre speeds of up to 900Mbps like those seen offered by its competitors aren't yet available from NOW, but we're not sure most people would need them
If you’re not sure what speed is right for your needs, we’ve put together a guide that will help you work this out.
3. Do you want a calls package?
Think carefully before adding a call package. Most people can get by on their mobile call allowance and apps like Facebook Messenger and Skype to contact people overseas.
You get a phone line with NOW whatever you do – so incoming calls are no problem. You can also just pay for calls as you go (but check the rates first). Calls packages are either for evenings and weekends, or anytime, to UK landlines and mobiles. You can add 1471 last number recall or caller display but these both cost £1 a month.
4. Do you want to add NOW TV?
If you decide to purchase a NOW TV membership, you can watch it in numerous ways: on your PC, smart TV, iPad, smartphone or games console. If you want to watch it on your telly, you can use a NOW TV box or stick. Both of these turn your TV into a smart TV. You can register up to four devices and watch on two at the same time.
