All you need to know about Post Office Broadband

The Post Office is known for its travel money, insurance and banking products, but this well respected brand also offers a small selection of affordable home broadband packages.

Post Office broadband deals have been available for a few years now, and in 2017 it adopted customers from the defunct Fuel Broadband, though it remains a relatively unknown player compared to the major names on the market.

Pricing is competitive and the brand and friendly face of its high street presence is reassuring, but is it any good? Here we’ll explain what services are offered by the broadband arm of the Post Office and compare them to other providers to help you when comparing deals.

What does Post Office offer?

Broadband

Post Office is an Openreach network provider, so broadband services are delivered over a standard phone line. That means that the majority of homes can get a Post Office broadband deal.

Post Office uses the TalkTalk network for its internet services so if you’ve ever had a TalkTalk broadband service you can expect similar performance from the Post Office. But it manages its own billing and customer services entirely separate from TalkTalk.

Phone

Post Office broadband offers a variety of inclusive call packages. On some deals you’ll get free inclusive weekend and evening calls. Other packages provide free calls to Post Office numbers, with other numbers charged on a pay-as-you-use basis.

If you wish to add calls you’ll find an extensive list of options, starting at a few pounds per month extra for weekend calls to landlines. Also available are packages for anytime calling, international calls and mobile calls.

Call packages can be added and removed at any time. The wide choice of deals and flexibile of the call plans means that there should be something for everybody. Of course, if you aren’t interested in using the landline phone you can opt to not add any call plan and just stick with broadband only.

Post Office broadband coverage and speed

As an Openreach network provider Post Office broadband speeds are broadly in line with most other ISPs. Post Office internet deals offer an average download speed of 11Mb for ADSL, or 35Mb or 63Mb for fibre optic. Remember these are the average speeds achieved by at least 50% of customers.

The majority of homes have access to the Openreach telephone network so will be able to get a Post Office broadband deal. All you need is a phone line (which can be installed if required). The line is required for Post Office as it does not have the capability to provide broadband without a phone.

You can check if Post Office is available to your home by entering a postcode into our broadband deals comparison table.

Post Office usage limits and traffic management

It wasn’t that long ago that Post Office broadband had a restrictive limit of 100GB per month. But if that has put you off before you’ll be pleased to know that cap was removed several years ago.

Post Office does still have a fair use policy, but it is incredibly vague and only talks about excessive usage without mentioning any specific figures.

Traffic management is used, however it only appears to be applied to file sharing during peak hours of 4PM to 12 midnight.

Post Office - the Broadband Genie review

We like

• Good value for money
• Reasonable speed
• Wide variety of phone call bundles
• Occasional reward deals

We don’t like

• Vague fair use and traffic management policies
• Basic packages with no extras or TV

Price is where Post Office shines, with its ADSL Post Office Unlimited Broadband package offering especially good value at under £20 per month, making it among the cheapest deals available. However, it does have a vague fair use and traffic management policy and its deals are barebones, with little in the way of extras and no option for TV.