![]() Unlike full fibre from the likes of BT, Sky, TalkTalk and others, you have a three in five chance of getting Virgin Media. These cables are light years ahead of the copper wires that deliver ADSL over the old BT phone network, and as such, Virgin Media has been upping its speeds considerably year-on-year. ![]() Virgin Media runs its own network, using cables originally designed to deliver hundreds of channels of cable TV. Though, as we will see next, Virgin Media's technology isn't strictly full fibre. Virgin Media is equally fast (actually a bit faster), and is available to a far greater proportion, so that is also a good option if you cannot get full fibre from any other providers. The biggest hurdle for people wanting full fibre right now is availability, since we are still in the early days of the rollout and only around one in five UK homes can get it. Full fibre, ultrafast, gigabit broadband, pure fibre, FTTP (fibre to the premises) and FTTH (fibre to the home) all mean the same thing: The cabling from your house to the network is fibre optic all the way, allowing for very high speeds. It also has the most names of any of these various means to deliver broadband. This is among the fastest of the available technologies, with speeds ranging from 100Mbps all the way up to 900Mbps or more. Any package between 30Mbps and 75Mbps is almost certainly this.įull fibre, pure fibre, ultrafast or FTTP broadband Fibre 65).Īs with ADSL, the easiest way to recognise a package using this technology (also called FTTC, or fibre to the cabinet), is by the speed. Providers tend to call packages that usr this technology things like 'Superfast', 'Super Fibre', 'Unlimited Fibre', Fibre 1 or 2, or Fibre followed by the rough speed (E.G. The span between the cabinet and your house is still copper, which severely limits your potential top speed.įibre broadband packages run from about 30Mbps to 75Mbps, with most providers offering a packages somewhere near each one of those ends of the scale. But it's a bit of a misnomer, because only part of the network is fibre-optic (extremely fast cables that transmit data using light) – the part between the green cabinet on the street, and the main backbone of the network. Between the rollout of ADSL (above) and so-called 'full fibre' (below), for the last decade or so, we've had something we simply call 'fibre broadband'. This is where things get a little trickier to define. Anything between 10Mbps and 17Mbps is going to be ADSL, no matter what the provider chooses to call it. The simplest and easiest way to recognise an ADSL package, though is the speed. Providers hae their own package/brand language to describe it, with packages typically called things like 'Simple', 'Simply', 'Brilliant', 'Unlimited', and ironically 'Fast' broadband. It is not categorised as fibre broadband, and is usually either called 'ADSL' or 'standard broadband'. It uses the old copper telephone network to deliver speeds of up to 17Mbps (usually advertised at averages of 10-12Mbps). This is the slowest of the available technologies, and at the time of writing is slowly being phased out. Let's take a look at these four technologies, and explain its various names (that mean the same thing), as well as the various brands and buzzwords awarded to them by providers. It's actually only four, but this is complicated by the fact that not only are there multiple names for the actual technology that provides each, but providers also have their own naming conventions, making it quite hard to know exactly what you're getting. The first thing you may immediately notice when shopping for a new broadband deal – especially if you haven't switched in the last few years – is there is now, what seems at first glance, to be a dozen or more types of broadband. Broadband ProviderĬompare cheap broadband What type of broadband can I get? With prices for a 35Mbps fibre connection starting at around £20 per month, they are also very affordable and little more than a standard broadband connection. As a result, the cheapest broadband you can but is now likely to be a 35Mbps fibre service.ģ5Mbps is ideal for general browsing as well as streaming over Netflix in a small household. However, providers are no longer offering standard ADSL broadband in areas where fibre connections are available (almost everywhere). Standard broadband connections tend to be cheaper than the fibre packages but, as a consequence, are slower and can be subject to usage limits and traffic management policies. Visit our broadband speed test to learn more about average speeds by broadband provider and type, to check your current broadband speed, and to find out what the fastest broadband speeds are in your area.Ĭompare fast broadband What’s the cheapest broadband in my area?
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