Who offers the best broadband in Coventry?

Customers able to receive Virgin Media services in Coventry will find they offer the fastest speeds available, although Openreach and CityFibre expansion is improving speeds across the city and beyond.

Plusnet are a solid choice for those customers content with superfast broadband, and they work to offer the cheapest prices out there.

The best TV and broadband bundles in Coventry come courtesy of Virgin Media thanks to their speeds, although it's worth remembering Sky TV can be taken as a standalone service.

Aivita Arika / Shutterstock.com

Best broadband packages in Coventry

Customers in Coventry should have plenty of choice when looking for a broadband provider, but these are our headline picks to save time:

Who offers the cheapest superfast broadband in Coventry?

Many budget broadband providers offer services in Coventry, but it's currently Plusnet who offer the cheapest deal on their 36Mb package:

	Package	Broadband	Monthly price	Upfront price	Contract term
Go	Unlimited Fibre	66Mb average	£24.99	Free	24 months
Go	Fibre 1	35Mb average	£24	Free	24 months
	Offer: £2 off for Vodafone pay monthly customers
Go	Unlimited Fibre + Line Only	35Mb average	£23	Free	18 months
	Offer: £75 Bill Credit (existing SSE energy customers only) + 60-day Happiness Guarantee
Go	Fab Fibre	36Mb average	£21	£10	12 months
	Offer: Save £3/mth until 4 July 2024 then £24/mth + NOW TV membership available reduced for 12 months (Ends 04/07/2024)
Go	Fibre 35	38Mb average	£28	Free	18 months
	Offer: Free setup and P&P
Go	Superfast Fibre 35Mb	35Mb average	£31.95	£8.95	12 months
	Offer: Loyalty Discount Club (worth £49.95)

Plusnet are a solid choice as a broadband provider, especially given their customer satisfaction ratings - there's more on this below.

It's just worth noting they still practice geographical pricing for less than 1% of customers, so the prices for hard-to-reach properties won't be the same as those listed above.

Read more in our Plusnet guide.

There are few frills with these broadband providers, and customers should consider whether they need additional call packs or are looking for TV options to sit alongside their broadband. If so, that will likely influence the choice of broadband provider.

Cheapest standard broadband provider in Coventry

Once more, Plusnet are the cheapest option for those looking at standard copper broadband in Coventry:

	Package	Broadband	Monthly price	Upfront price	Contract term
Go	Unlimited + Line only	10Mb average	£25.99	Free	24 months
	Offer: Reduced price + No setup fee + Exclusive offers and discounts for Plusnet customers
Go	Brilliant Broadband	11Mb average	£20	£10	12 months
	Offer: Save £3/mth until 4 July 2024 then £23/mth + NOW TV membership available reduced for 12 months (Ends 04/07/2024)
Go	Unlimited Broadband	11Mb average	£22.95	£8.95	12 months
	Offer: Loyalty Discount Club (worth £49.95)
Go	Broadband	11Mb average	£18.99	Free	12 months

Usually, there's little difference in price between the budget providers when it comes to standard broadband. Some providers like BT don't advertise it anymore, focusing instead on their superfast packages.

Customers who don't use broadband very much but like to have a decent call package might want to look at Now TV as they have inclusive calls as standard.

Who offers the fastest broadband in Coventry?

Coventry were part of the Virgin Media Gig1 switch-on in the West Midlands back in February 2020, so a large proportion of customers have access to speeds of up to 1,104Mb.

Plus, parts of Coventry have access to Vodafone's Gigafast service and Openreach's full fibre network.

These are the prices for the fastest packages offered by each:

	Package	Broadband	Monthly price	Upfront price	Contract term
Go	Full Fibre 910 + Super WiFi	910Mb average	£43	Free	24 months
	Offer: £2 off for Vodafone pay monthly customers
Go	Full Fibre 900	900Mb average	£44.99	Free	24 months
	Offer: £50 BT Reward Card + Free setup (was £31.99) (Ends 12/12/2024)
Go	Gig1 Fibre Broadband	1.13Gb average	Free for 3 mths, then £34.99	Free	18 months
	Offer: Black Friday: 3 months free + 3 months free Disney+ Standard + No setup fee (was £35) (Ends 08/12/2024)

As we can see, Virgin's Gig1 might be the fastest, but it's also the most expensive option while Vodafone's deal is by far the cheapest.

However, the availability of Vodafone Gigafast is localised across the city. Initial rollouts focused on the following areas:

The next areas set for CityFibre works, confirmed in August 2020, are:

Meanwhile, Openreach confirmed in June 2020 that they have passed more than 40,000 homes and businesses with their full fibre network.

The main concentration of Openreach FFTP is found in western parts of the city, slightly overlapping with some northern areas covered by CityFibre's network.

Hyperoptic

Hyperoptic also has a small presence in Coventry, expanding building by building and registering interest across the city.

At the time of writing, though, they only have a handful of active buildings, so they're unlikely to be an option for many. These are the five active locations at the time of writing:

Read more about Hyperoptic's broadband services here.

There's more detail below on coverage across Coventry, showing how gigabit-capable broadband varies by constituency.

Choosing the best broadband and TV in Coventry

Broadband bundles can help customers save money when taking multiple services, and thanks to Virgin Media's presence in the West Midlands, customers can get some comprehensive TV services with the fastest available broadband.

First, though, what are the options for bundling broadband with a good home phone package?

What are the best broadband and home phone bundles?

Customers looking for a home phone deal with inclusive calls have one main option: Now TV Broadband. They are the only provider offer inclusive calls as standard:

	Package	Broadband	Monthly price	Upfront price	Contract term
Go	Fab Fibre	36Mb average	£21	£10	12 months
	Offer: Save £3/mth until 4 July 2024 then £24/mth + NOW TV membership available reduced for 12 months (Ends 04/07/2024)
Go	Fibre	36Mb average	£26	Free	24 months
	Offer: 10% off for EE pay monthly mobile customers + 5GB extra data for EE pay monthly mobile customers + Free setup
Go	Super Fibre	63Mb average	£21	£10	12 months
	Offer: Save £3/mth until 4 July 2024 then £24/mth + NOW TV membership available reduced for 12 months (Ends 04/07/2024)
Go	Superfast Fibre 35Mb	35Mb average	£31.95	£8.95	12 months
	Offer: Loyalty Discount Club (worth £49.95)

As the table shows, Now TV offer both the cheapest and the third cheapest options for customers looking for inclusive calls - so, we can get faster broadband with calls included at a cheaper price than with other providers.

However, inclusive anytime calls are only one option, and when we start to look at the call boosts and plans offered by ISPs, we find more choices.

Let's take Sky Broadband as an example, since we discuss their TV services in the next section.

Sky offer four distinct call packages, one of which can be added to a home broadband deal. These are the options when taken with Sky's entry-level fibre Broadband Superfast:

Most broadband companies offer variations on these plans, so if there is a broadband provider offering a good deal in other respects, see whether they offer an appropriate call plan for your household.

TV and broadband bundles for homes in Coventry

Both Virgin Media and Sky offer comprehensive TV packages, although there are also TV deals to be taken alongside broadband from TalkTalk and others.

These are the entry-level TV and broadband deals offered by some providers:

	Package	TV	Broadband	Monthly price	Upfront price	Contract term
Go	M125 Fibre Broadband + Flex	150	132Mb average	£27.99	£10	18 months
	Offer: Reduced price for 18 months
Go	Entertainment + Fibre 2	96	67Mb average	£43.99	Free	24 months
	Offer: £50 BT Reward Card + Save £144 on EE Entertainment TV + Free setup on BT Broadband and EE TV (was £61.99) (Ends 12/12/2024)
Go	Sky Ultimate TV + Broadband Superfast	401	61Mb average	£43	Free	18 months
Go	Fibre 35 Entertainment	93	38Mb average	£42.98	Free	18 months
	Offer: Save £5 per month + NOW Boost at no extra cost + Free setup and P&P

Thanks to the fast broadband speeds available from Virgin Media in the Coventry area, it's possible to combine TV services with broadband speeds of up to 1GB, so they're a top pick.

These are the headline prices for TV services coupled with the broadband package Virgin suggest should be bundled with them:

	Package	TV	Broadband	Monthly price	Upfront price	Contract term
Go	M125 Fibre Broadband + Flex	150	132Mb average	£27.99	£10	18 months
	Offer: Reduced price for 18 months
Go	Bigger bundle	190	362Mb average	Free for 3 mths, then £39.99	Free	18 months
	Offer: Black Friday: 3 months free + 3 months free Disney+ Standard + No setup fee (was £35) (Ends 08/12/2024)
Go	Biggest bundle	210	516Mb average	Free for 3 mths, then £79	Free	18 months
	Offer: Black Friday: 3 months free + 3 months free Disney+ Standard + No setup fee (was £35) (Ends 08/12/2024)
Go	Mega Volt bundle	230	1.13Gb average	£20 for 3 mths, then £84.99	Free	18 months
	Offer: Black Friday: Just £20 for 3 months + No setup fee (was £35) + O2 mobile SIM with Unlimited data, minutes and texts (Ends 08/12/2024)

Our full review of Virgin TV explains exactly what channels are included with each bundle, as well as exploring the extra "picks" that can be added for a more bespoke experience.

For customers who don't necessarily want to take broadband and TV from the same provider, Sky TV allows the greatest choice for standalone TV packages, although Now TV non-contract passes are a great way of getting Sky content without signing up to a long-term deal.

Some smaller ISPs like Origin are moving towards bundling services like Netgem with their broadband as an incentive to join - but it all depends on what content customers are looking for.

Who is the best broadband provider for customer service?

Complaint figures are one way to test customer satisfaction and, on that metric, both Sky and EE performing brilliantly.

They had the lowest complaint figures per 100,000 customers in 2019, with Sky registering just 21 and EE registering 22.

On the other end of the scale, however, Vodafone and Plusnet struggled with their complaint levels in 2019, high above the industry average with 115 and 100 respectively.

For Plusnet, this was mainly due to a lingering billing system switchover issue which affected customers from September 2018 onwards.

As we can see from the quarterly figures, though, Plusnet have been consistently reducing their figures in the period since:

Coupled with their performance in Ofcom's latest Comparing Service Quality report which found their customers were the most satisfied of all major providers, it seems like Plusnet's customer service is getting back on track.

Customers considering Virgin Media as one of the fastest broadband options in Coventry should note their complaint figures in 2019 were slightly above average (60 per 100,000 customers), and their overall satisfaction rate was 85% - this put them fifth in the table but they were only a few percentage points off the top three in a close race.

Broadband coverage in Coventry

Using data from Think Broadband, we can see the constituencies of Coventry North East and Coventry North West have enviable levels of gigabit broadband availability:

This is thanks to Coventry being part of the Virgin Media West Midlands rollout in February 2020, so customers in the first two constituencies have 88% and 87% of Virgin's top tier coverage.

For households in Coventry South, that figure drops to 57%, which helps explain why the level of gigabit-capable broadband in that constituency is lower than in the other two.

Yet the level of gigabit competition is high, especially in Coventry North West. These are the figures showing how much coverage Virgin Media have with their cable compared to other full fibre networks:

Because of the presence of both Vodafone Gigafast and Openreach in the Coventry area, customers theoretically have plenty of choice, although it's entirely possible some households will be caught in blackspots or hard-to-reach locations outside the city centre.

Verdict: who's best for broadband in Coventry?

If you're looking for sheer speed, there's no provider with faster speeds than Virgin - and their local coverage in Coventry is pretty good too.

Virgin is our top pick for anyone searching for ultrafast services and above for two good reasons:

• Their 1GB speeds are active in Coventry and cover much of the city
• Their TV service allows for personalised bundles

Customers outside Virgin Media streets in Coventry may well be frustrated that the fastest speeds aren't yet available to them, and it's entirely possible Openreach/CityFibre infrastructure could bypass them too.

That may leave superfast broadband as the fastest available, and our top pick for that is Plusnet.

Despite a patchy customer service record in recent years, Plusnet seem to have got back on track and strive to offer the cheapest fibre broadband deals to their customers, even if it's just by a few pennies.

Remember, though, if TV services and/or landline calls are important to your household, there may be better options out there - compare broadband deals in your area and select the criteria most important to you.