How does choosing broadband overseas compare to the UK?

Here in the UK, choosing a new ISP is relatively straightforward.

You visit BroadbandDeals.co.uk, enter your postcode and any essential criteria, and chose the package that best meets your budget or any other requirements.

But what if you find yourself choosing broadband overseas?

Our website is purely UK-focused, and you won’t find national bodies like Which? or Ofcom overseas. Some countries have equivalents to these agencies, but many don’t.

You could use a search engine, but these are increasingly hobbled by AI-generated overviews which may be outdated or inaccurate, and they’ll always try to skew towards UK results.

That’s because the search engines have geolocation technology which know you’re in the UK and will favour domestically based resources written in English.

With 194 countries beyond our own, not to mention many dependencies and disputed territories, we can’t give you a country-by-country guide to choosing broadband overseas.

What we can do is offer general advice on how to start, where to look and what to consider – whether you’re looking at broadband in a permanent home, second home or temporary home.

Foreign exchange

One broadband company could have multiple trading names abroad or offer its network to several competing providers.

Tesco Mobile and Sky Mobile both use O2’s wireless networks, while Plusnet and EE are both owned by Sky.

Similarly, Orange owns numerous national Spanish ISP brands, including Lebara, Jazztel and Lyca. On a regional level, it also owns Basque provider Euskaltel and Galician brand R.

As a result, it’s important not just to look at a particular ISP’s reputation, but also at their parent company’s performance in terms of network rollout and investment.

Remember that supposedly trustworthy review websites are routinely manipulated by unscrupulous companies paying (or spuriously complaining) to remove negative reviews.

The phenomenon of false positive reviews is also a global scourge. Where you can view past account activity, be wary of any reviews from profiles with no other contributions on record.

Focus on expat Reddit threads, Google reviews (themselves not impervious to fraud), national guides like Portugalist or market analysis from government-level regulators.

A quick search for “broadband industry watchdog” in your destination country should steer you towards Arcep in France, the Bundesnetzagentu in Germany or the FCC in America.

These bodies may publish reports on line speeds, customer satisfaction surveys, investment programmes or simply the details of how to register complaints should things go awry.

Get your priorities straight

Having hopefully shortlisted a few potential ISPs, you’ll need to investigate what they can offer at your chosen address.

When choosing broadband overseas, use a VPN to spoof your identity within the country you’re moving to. This averts the geolocation issues mentioned above.

Depending on the country, you might need a full postal address, a post/ZIP code or even a landline telephone number to check availability at a particular address.

Having this information to hand is vitally important, just as our own website would struggle to give accurate results without a postcode enabling us to identify your nearest exchange.

Next, consider how fast you need your overseas broadband to be.

This is one area where the world is in lockstep. There are mobile-powered 4G and 5G networks, Fibre to the Cabinet connections or full fibre services.

The latter have higher speeds but tend to cost more and may require you to lock into a single provider’s hardware, whereas slower networks may offer more choice.

Another shared similarity with the UK is the propensity for ISPs to bundle sweeteners into contracts, such as mobile SIMs or TV packages, though these may be of only limited benefit.

Above all, consider potential contract lengths.

If there’s any possibility of leaving the country you’re moving to within one year, a long-term contract clearly isn’t advisable.

In such circumstances, a rolling 30-day contract – if such policies are offered in your destination country – may represent a more cancellation-friendly option.

After all, few countries have one-touch switching policies as simple as ours, and any customer service issues will be compounded if you’re not fluent in the native tongue.