MovePlanBroadband when moving house
This has the longest lead time of anything in a move and the least visible deadline. It is the task most likely to make your first fortnight miserable.
Almost every moving checklist puts broadband somewhere in the middle, around four weeks out, next to redirecting your post. That is too late, and it's the most reliable way to spend your first fortnight in a new house tethering off a phone.
Install appointments are the constraint, not the paperwork. Two to four weeks is normal; longer is common where an engineer visit or a new line is required, and both are decided by availability at the property rather than by how organised you are.
Transfer or switch?
Two genuinely different options with different consequences, and providers will steer you toward the first.
| Transfer your existing service | Switch to a new provider | |
|---|---|---|
| Contract | Usually continues, and often restarts for a new minimum term — check this explicitly before agreeing. | A new contract, with whatever introductory pricing is available. |
| Cost | You keep your current price, which after a couple of years is frequently well above the new-customer rate. | Often materially cheaper, because the discounts go to new customers. |
| Exit fees | Generally avoided, since you're not leaving. | Payable if you're inside your minimum term — but see the availability point below. |
| Risk | Lower. Same account, same equipment. | More coordination, and a real chance of a gap between services if dates don't line up. |
Check what the new address can actually get
Do this before choosing anything, and check the specific address, not the street or postcode. Availability varies house by house — particularly where full fibre has been rolled out to part of a street, or where a flat is served by a different arrangement from the building next door.
- Check availability at the exact address on the provider's own checker, and on Ofcom's if you want a second view.
- Ask the seller or landlord what they currently have and who with — the fastest reliable answer available.
- Find out whether there's an existing working line or socket. A new line install adds both cost and time.
- In a flat, ask about the building — some have arrangements that restrict who can serve you.
- If you work from home, check upload speed and not just download. They differ enormously between technologies.
The order to do it in
Broadband timeline
- At exchangeCheck what's available at the exact new address
- At exchangeAsk your current provider what a transfer costs, and whether the term restarts
- 6 weeksBook the install or transfer, and get the appointment date in writing
- 4 weeksCompare the transfer price against new-customer deals — the gap is often large
- 2 weeksConfirm the appointment, and check whether anyone needs to be in
- 1 weekArrange a mobile data backup for the gap, if there is one
- Moving dayTake the router with you unless the provider has asked for it back
If there's going to be a gap
Sometimes unavoidable, especially where an engineer visit is needed. Plan for it rather than hoping:
- Check your mobile data allowance and what tethering does to it. A household of laptops burns through an allowance fast.
- A short-term data SIM or 4G/5G router is cheaper than it used to be and worth it if you work from home.
- Tell work before the move, not on the morning of the outage.
- Download anything you need offline in advance — including anything the children will want.
The rest of the utilities — gas, electric, water — are far more forgiving and mostly need a final reading rather than an appointment. They're covered with everything else in the full who-to-notify list.
MovePlan puts broadband at the front of a dated plan built from your move date, where it belongs, and drafts your address-change letters filled in with your details. £14.99 once, for 90 days.