John Lewis broadband review

John Lewis broadband deals review

* As of October 2022, John Lewis have ceased to accept new broadband customers. The existing customer base is being served by Plusnet, who are part of BT Group.

In this review

• John Lewis broadband deals
• John Lewis broadband summary
• John Lewis broadband features
• Types of John Lewis broadband explained
• John Lewis broadband speeds
• John Lewis broadband router
• Positive reasons to buy John Lewis broadband
• Potential negatives with John Lewis broadband
• John Lewis broadband rating

Summary

John Lewis may be more familiar to you for their homeware and department stores around the UK, but they are also providers of broadband contracts to home users.

They may not have the background in IT infrastructure such as a BT or Virgin Media but they partner with Plusnet so their broadband infrastructure is among the best in the business. Couple this with their extremely high standards of UK based support and you have a very good service offering.

Keep a look out for gift card perks when taking out a contract because John Lewis are famous for offering e-gift cards for their own stores at different times of the year.

So you might now be wondering whether John Lewis are any good as a broadband provider. Our detailed John Lewis broadband review will tell you more…

John Lewis broadband features

John Lewis broadband is offered on either an ADSL or fibre basis with three main choices of average download speed. Whether you choose the slower ADSL or faster fibre option your line rental will be included in the overall cost of the deal.

John Lewis are known for offering gift cards to spend in John Lewis stores as an incentive to signing up to their broadband. The offers vary but you could get a £30 – £50 e-gift card just for taking out John Lewis broadband.

Types of John Lewis Broadband explained

John Lewis offer two Fibre Broadband options and one standard ADSL broadband option.

If you simply want to browse the Internet or check your emails then the standard ADSL option should be perfectly adequate, however, if there are multiple people in your household that will be sharing the broadband line and there will be entertainment content being streamed or downloaded online it is likely that a fibre broadband package would be more suitable.

Evening and weekend calls are included with all contracts, but if you want to upgrade to anytime calls or anytime calls with international calls you can add a small monthly cost onto the price of the contract.

John Lewis broadband speeds

Your options are very straightforward when choosing your John Lewis broadband deal.

You need to decide whether to opt for the ADSL option which has an average download speed of 10Mbps or you could choose one of the fibre optic options which have average download speeds of 36Mbps or 66Mbps.

Upload speeds for each of the three broadband products average at the following respective levels 1Mbps, 10Mbps and 20Mbps depending on the product chosen.

There are no usage caps on any of the JL broadband plans so you don’t need to worry about having to pay penalty charges for being outside of your data package because their plans are unlimited.

Plusnet are the backbone provider of the John Lewis broadband service and they are known for their quality broadband infrastructure.

John Lewis broadband router

You will receive a free router from John Lewis when you subscribe to one of their broadband packages. The type of router you receive will depend on whether you have chosen the slower ADSL option or the faster fibre broadband.

For ADSL customers the Netgear WNR1000 is supplied.

For fibre customers the ZyXEL VMG8924 will be sent to you. The ZyXEL router is dual band with 802.11ac technology and is a fairly standard home router. It is certainly not one of the very best routers or home hub solutions but it is perfectly adequate at what it does and will happily beam a Wi-Fi signal around your home to your Internet capable devices.

John Lewis broadband positives and negatives

Positive reasons to buy John Lewis broadband

• John Lewis Broadband packages all come with unlimited usage as standard.
• The broadband network used by John Lewis to deliver their service is the award winning Plusnet.
• John Lewis is renowned for excellent customer service with all broadband support guaranteed to come from a UK call centre using a Freephone number.
• The fibre broadband contracts offered by John Lewis start at a minimum 12 months. Most fibre broadband providers offer 18 month minimum contracts.
• A PC security package is included with all John Lewis Broadband packages.
• Broadband line activation is free of charge.
• A router is supplied with broadband contracts.
• A free John Lewis email address is provided.
• Evening and weekend calls are included as standard with John Lewis Broadband.
• Broadband coverage is widely available throughout the UK.

Potential negatives with John Lewis broadband

• John Lewis Broadband is not the cheapest broadband on offer in the UK.
• John Lewis Fibre Extra offers a fast 66Mb average download speed which is fast, but not as fast as some of the fibre optic broadband offerings from Virgin Media or BT.
• Although the broadband is classed as unlimited, there is some traffic management to maximise network performance during high load periods.
• There is no option to select broadband only – to take broadband it is necessary to have a John Lewis phone line (included as part of the package as standard).

John Lewis broadband rating

By Laurie Walker – 3.5 out of 5.