Getting The Best Netherlands ISP For Your Expat Needs

If you’re an expat heading for the Netherlands, one of the most important tasks you’ll have is finding the best internet service provider in your chosen area.

Like it or not, the internet has taken over the lives of citizens and expats alike, no matter where they’re based in the world. Arriving in your new country and finding your chosen location is an internet black spot is a disaster, whether you’re a digital nomad, news freak, social media addict or silver surfer. Surprisingly, the Netherlands is still a country where the internet service you get depends on where you’re living, so researching fibre-optic providers before you settle in is essential.

The Netherlands has a number of providers, some of which don’t cover the entire country and others whose services are too slow to be of use to entrepreneurs or others who depend on the net for their livelihoods or contact with family back home. The first step is to research your chosen area to find out which suppliers support the region. Secondly, you’ll need to remember that, in the Netherlands as in many other countries, ISPs advertise speeds more aligned to fantasy than reality. What you’ll get is far lower than advertised, but a new law now forces suppliers to tell the absolute truth about actual speeds. Remember the further your service is located from the supplier’s local switch, the slower your speed will be.

Choosing a supplier with an efficient customer support network including spoken English is also important, as you’ll realise when your first outage occurs! Online reviews of available companies are found in local expat forums and should give you an idea of which ones to avoid. One supplier, KPN, has a useful extra perk in the form of its WiFi hotspots, a million and more of which are scattered all over the country. Users of the service can use them automatically.

KPN is also popular for its default TV channel packages including pre-installed NetFlix access. Again, checking on local expat forums should tell you all you need to know. Contracts for internet access and TV run for a year, and it’s well worth checking out your present provider’s rivals on the scene, as your fees are certain to increase with your present provider and savings could amount to around 100 euros a year.