The battle for broadband – A survival guide when you’re doubling up and dabbling between working from home and have your kids who are home-schooling.

Here we are at it again! 2021 may have dawned on us, but it still feels very 2020 ish – we’re encouraged to work from home wherever possible, and if you’re like us and have kids then they are probably home-schooling too.

However, some things are different this time – and a big one is that while schools tended to set work through email and online portals last year, this time they are increasingly running live lessons over platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex and more.

This has huge advantages in replicating the school experience much more closely – and helps make sure the youngsters pay attention, however what needs to be taken into consideration is that any video platform is hungry for bandwidth, and the result could be an extra strain on our home broadband networks, which were not designed for daily business use, let alone a combination of homeworking and home-schooling.

If you’re 55+ you’re most likely to be hit by broadband price hikes

If there's one thing we strongly suggest above everything else it's that you should never stay on your old broadband deal once your contract has ended, even if you are an existing V4 customer, always ask us for the best deal we could put you on before renewing your contract with us. Recent studies has shown that consumer over 55 are the most likely to stay on their old broadband deals - and they're leaving themselves open to not having the best deal they could. The survey shows that 72% of 55+ haven't switched broadband providers in the last year, and in some cases have never switched at all. This pales in comparison to the under-25’s who are much happier to shop around for the best deal and over 62% have moved to a new provider in the last year alone.