Advice on getting the best ISP for expats in the Netherlands

Given the present-day popularity of the Netherlands as a hub for expats in the tech sector, getting the best ISP for your needs is crucial.

For expats planning a start-up in the Netherlands as well as foreign students hoping to study at a Dutch university, getting the right ISP for their needs is a priority. Searching online for the major players in the location and ploughing through endless pages of customer reviews isn’t much fun, but needs to be done to make sure the correct choice is made. Especially for those in the tech sector, signing on to a major provider out of sheer frustration could be your biggest mistake.

If lowish prices are mandatory, a DSL connection is more or less the only option, with big players such as Tele2 and Telfort both economic options. Bandwidths range between 20 to 100 megabits per second, (Mbps) allowing for more than one device sharing a connection for social media browsing, web surfing and file downloads. For high definition video streaming, the quality of your service may well depend on where in the country you're living.

Gamers, heavy downloaders and professionals making large numbers of video calls will need the fastest practicable speeds. T-Mobile, KPN and several other providers offer fibre-optic packages incorporating speeds of up to 500 Mbps, enough bandwidth for heavy-duty unlimited action on several devices at once. The best-ranked service at this level is Ziggo, even although its advertised speed is 400 Mbps.

As an expat, it’s not easy to make the right decision as regards the most suitable ISP, especially as one crucial element is the provider’s level of bilingual customer service. In a recent survey, KPN Glasvesel and XS4ALL has the best customer service and the least downtimes and service disruptions between April and July 2017. Ziggo has the honour of being the best ISP over the past seven years, according to another survey, and expats who aren’t exactly IT-savvy could do worse then choose between the ISPs mentioned above, dependent on your location.