Having to cancel TV Licence or Broadband 26 April 2022 at 2:24PM in Phones & TV 8 replies 214 views

Little_monster

Due to ill health, I've had to change career and will be attending FE college to retrain in the new academic year. The issue is I won't be able to afford both a TV licence and broadband and will need to choose one. I plan to stay late at college and do my coursework in the library so don't anticipate needing broadband for my studies but it is handy to have this at home. I can't tether from my phone as the mobile broadband speed is unusable when I am inside my flat. If I got rid of my TV licence, I would sell my TV and if I got rid of my broadband, I would sell my laptop for extra income. Has anyone else been in this situation? 

[Deleted User]

Broadband would be far more useful than a TV licence, as you'd still be able to watch TV through catchup services.

Olinda99

... although not the iplayer

mark_cycling00

can you change mobile provider and get better mobile signal? I can barely get EE but changed to (asda) Vodafone and get 40MBps signal. 

Little_monster

I've tried most providers and I've never had the Internet fast enough to facilitate video calling or watching videos. 

Neil_Jones

Landline broadband?  You'd probably get a decent speed.  Yes it'll be more expensive but it'll probably be faster.  Which would open up video viewing/streaming.

However purely from a financial point of view... a TV licence will almost certainly be cheaper than broadband.  £159 over twelve months is £13.25.  Landline broadband you won't get anywhere near that level unless you're incredibly jammy so expect going price to be about £20-£25 a month.

pjread

I dropped TV licence about 9 years ago, never missed it.  But would find having no broadband irritating to say the least - and suspect regardless of intentions it'll be convenient to be able to use at home for study purposes.

ahmjt

I did not have tellyy license from 2003 to 2017. Then moved to a new place in 2017, the living room had an empty space, a friend offered to give him old TV as he bought a new one. Since then I have license, but frankly speaking never missed not having TV.

phillw

I'd keep the tv, laptop & broadband and ditch the tv license.

I can't imagine you would get that much money selling an old tv or laptop anyway.

If you're that short of money that you have to sell them now, then you might want to rethink how you're going to live.