The internet has become one of those absolute necessities for households everywhere.
The monthly bill that comes in is just part of your essentials. Yet, when money is tight or there are unexpected bills in other areas, it might be time to reassess how much you are paying for your monthly internet bill.
Is it possible to lower an internet bill? We did some looking and asking around to find the right answer to this question. Here’s what we learned.
- Read your bill. You might be reading this and thinking, “of course I ready my bill!” But how closely are you reading your bill? You should look at your current bill and last month’s bill to see how they line up. You should look for what you are paying for as far as usage and speed go. Sometimes there are additional fees in the fine print that you might not have even known are something that you can have removed. If you suspect this is the case, your next step will be to talk to your provider and have them break down the cost. Hidden fees might be negotiable so start there.
- Buy your own modem or router. If you are renting your modem or router directly from your ISP, it is time to go out and buy your own. There is no sense in continually paying rent on a modem that you will never get to own. To buy your own, you will want to look for something that is compatible with your ISP. For example, if you are using Comcast, you will want to look for the recommended modem router combo for Xfinity to help guide you in your quest.
- Service bundling: This one depends a lot on the type of internet that you have, but if you can bundle your services, this might reduce the cost that you are paying each month for internet. For example, if you are using a cable internet provider, you can bundle your internet with your cable television. Or, if you use a voice service, like Xfinity Voice, you can combine this service as well. The goal here is that instead of having several services that you pay for individually, you can have just one company that supplies all of your needed services at a reduced rate. It doesn’t work for everything but it’s worth a shot.
- Talk to your ISP. Beyond noticing small fees or details within your bill, you might want to look to see if your ISP has been offering any kinds of deals or discounts. While a lot of the time these deals only apply to new customers, you will often not know that your ISP was willing to give you a better rate to ensure that you do not leave them without asking. If they think that you are completely satisfied with your service, they are not going to go out of their way to reduce your bill. If you tell them that you are unhappy with the cost, they might be able to do something about it.
- Shop around. If your ISP isn’t willing to negotiate on the rate, it is perfectly acceptable to shop around and look for what options there are out in the world. Competitors will often have new signup deals, so changing from your current ISP to a new one might lock you into a lower price. Just make sure that the new company has all of the services that you have been enjoying. There are also different service types that might not be appropriate for your specific location, so it is best to investigate before you commit to one thing over another.
- Do you need to reduce your services? Another way that you might be able to cut down your bill is to look into the services that you are paying for. If Gigabit internet sounded great at signup, but the truth is that you will never stream to a heavy enough degree to justify it, you can save yourself some money by dropping down to a different speed tier. The highest speeds of the internet are nice, but sometimes they might not even be noticeable if you are not using even a fraction of the available speeds.
- Call a company that works to lower bills. If all else fails, you can confer with a company that works to lower your bills for you. They usually take a cut of the percentage that you are saving in your bills, but their insight can often look for any hidden fees that you have missed.
Regardless of which method you do for, remember that if your bill seems too high, it is better to look into why that is and find a solution.
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