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If you’re not sure what internet products are available in your area, a broadband postcode checker will tell you. Many providers offer a checker that will only show you availability for their deals, so it’s not useful in finding the best deals available to you. Use a comparison tool, which will show you deals from all broadband providers supplying in your area and can be filtered by factors such as price and speed.
Last updated: 20 November, 2023 | Estimated Reading Time: 7 Minutes
The trouble with broadband is that, while there are a lot of great deals out there, you need to use a postcode checker as not all of them are available to everyone. This can make it a frustrating experience to go onto a provider’s website and choose a package that suits you perfectly, only to find that it isn’t available where you live. Fortunately, whether you’re looking for cheap broadband in my area or the fastest broadband, there’s a a way to verify this beforehand.
If you’re wondering what’s the fastest broadband between standard broadband or fibre, the answer is obvious -fibre broadband. Since standard broadband depends on the older network made up of copper phone cables, it can’t reach the same speeds as fibre. Fibre broadband uses a modern system of fibre optic cables to allow faster speeds, but may not be available everywhere.
Knowing what broadband speed you need is important. You need your home broadband to be fast enough so you don’t get annoying lags or connection problems, but also you don’t want to pay for faster broadband than what you need. Depending on the size of your household, the speed needs to keep up with multiple online users, as well as activities such as gaming or streaming. In general, 10mpbs per person in the household is enough. So, for a family of 4, you’ll need an average of 30-60mpbs, and around 60-1000mpbs for gamers or streamers.
A broadband postcode checker will let you know exactly which deals are available in your area. Most providers offer a checker on their website, but they will only show their own offers, so it’s difficult to know whether or not you’re getting a good deal. Our postcode checker will show you what’s available in your area across all providers, so you can compare broadband deals without the risk of being disappointed when you try to sign up to the one you choose.
There are several broadband providers that can claim to have the best coverage in the UK. The majority of UK internet service providers (ISPs) connect their customers to the internet via the Openreach network, which is used by more than 500 ISPs supplying about 30 million customers. Here are just a few of the major broadband providers that get their users connected via Openreach:
Only Virgin Media has a network comparable to Openreach in terms of coverage, reaching a little over 50% of homes in the UK. This also makes Virgin the only ISP to offer truly broadband-only deals, which don’t include line rental, as line rental is necessary to connect users to the Openreach network.
What are the broadband providers with the best broadband speed? Several broadband providers now offer full-fibre broadband, with average speeds of up to 1Gbps. Here’s a selection of fibre-broadband deals that can get you great average speeds for less than £40 a month:
Provider | Package | Term | Avg. download speed |
---|---|---|---|
Virgin Media | M125 Fibre Broadband + Home Phone | 18 months | 132Mbps |
Wightfibre | Full Fibre 500 | 1 month (rolling) | 500Mbps |
Shell Energy | Full Fibre 100 | 18 months | 109Mbps |
EE | Fibre Max 100 | 24 months | 140Mbps |
TalkTalk | Full Fibre 150 | 18 months | 152Mbps |
BT | Full Fibre 100 | 24 months | 150Mbps |
The broadband speeds on offer here are enough to cope with heavy internet usage on several devices. Faster connections are available for instance from Sky or Vodafone.
It’s important to note that WiFi is another factor that tends to slow down your connection speed. If you’re experiencing slower internet speeds than those advertised by your broadband provider, it could be because you’re accessing it via WiFi. To get the most out of your broadband deal, use an ethernet cable when you can, as this will provide your device with the most reliable connection.
If you’re in the market for more than just broadband, you should look into which packages are available in your area. Several broadband providers now offer multiple services such as broadband and TV deals along with their broadband offer, so if you see that one of the providers below offers broadband in your area, you may want to think about whether you want to add more than just internet to your deal:
Provider | Services | Recommended Packages |
---|---|---|
BT | Broadband, phone, TV, BT mobile | Entertainment & Netflix +Fibre 2 (74Mb avg. speed; 24 month contract) |
Sky | Broadband, phone, TV, Sky mobile | Sky Stream, Sky Entertainment & Netflix with Full Fibre 100 (100Mb avg. speed; 18 month contract) |
Virgin Media | Broadband, phone, TV, Virgin mobile | Big bundle (M50 fibre broadband; 100+ TV channels; Home phone) |
Vodafone | Broadband, phone, TV, Vodafone mobile | Full Fibre 100 CityFibre (100Mb avg. speed; 24 month contract) |
Plusnet | Broadband, phone, TV, Plusnet mobile | Unlimited Broadband (Line rental included; 12 month contract) |
Talk Talk | Broadband, phone, TV, Talkmobile | Full Fibre 500 +TalkTalk TV 4K Box (525Mb avg. speed; 18 month contract) |
EE | Broadband, phone, EE mobile | Fibre Max 300 (300Mbps avg. speed; include Apple TV 4K) |
Utility Warehouse | Broadband, phone, mobile, energy, insurance | Ultra package broadband (36 Mbps avg. speed; 18 month contract) |
Co-op | Broadband, phone, mobile, energy | Superfast Fibre Plus broadband (63-76 Mbps avg. speed; 12-24 month contract) |
SSE | Broadband, phone, energy | SSE no longer offers broadband |
Shell | Broadband, phone, energy | Superfast Fibre 12 (38Mbps avg. speed; 12 month contract) |
The above providers are all able to make your life a little bit easier by pooling multiple services under one monthly bill. Some even offer extra services such as boiler cover. Whether a deal represents good value for money, however, is another thing. Do a thorough comparison before changing your provider, as it’s often a lot of hassle to get out of one once you’re signed up.
If you sign up to a fixed contract for several products with the same provider, make sure it provides good customer service. Being tied to a contract for all your home services with a company with poor customer service will not be a happy experience.
If you want to check the speed of your broadband, you can also check it on Speedtest.net.
There are several ways you can get your home connected to the internet. In this section we’ll take you through them.
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) broadband, also known as standard broadband, connects users to the internet via copper phone cables. It replaced dial-up broadband as the most common type of connection and is now the most basic type of broadband still in use. Copper cables allow for average speeds of up to 11 Mbps for downloads, which is not enough to meet most households’ internet demands comfortably.
Fibre broadband connects users to the internet via fibre-optic cables, which contain glass fibres that transmit data in the form of light at average speeds between three and a hundred times faster than ADSL broadband. Superfast fibre connections are now widely available throughout the UK and will eventually make older methods obsolete. There are two types of fibre connection:
Fibre-to–the-cabinet (FTTC), often called superfast broadband, is the most common kind of broadband deal, connecting your home to the internet via a combination of fibre-optic and copper phone cables. Fibre cables carry data as far as the green cabinet on your street, hence the name, and a phone line takes it the rest of the way to your home. The download speeds offered by FTTC deals tend to range from 35 to 80Mbps, depending on how far your home is from the nearest cabinet.
Fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), also called ultrafast, hyperfast, or full-fibre broadband, is broadband that connects your home to the internet solely using fibre-optic cables. This method gets the most out of fibre technology, allowing for average download speeds of up to 1Gbps depending on the deal and the internet provider you sign up with, but is limited in terms of availability due to the difficulty and expense involved in the installation process.
Cable broadband is broadband that connects you to the internet using coaxial cables. These cables are an alternative to fibre-optic cables, pioneered by Virgin Media, which operates its own network using this technology. Coaxial cables allow for download speeds that compare well to those offered by standard, and FTTC broadband, but are usually not as quick as an FTTP connection. Cable broadband does however, have better availability than full-fibre at present. To find out availability in your area, put your postcode into Virgin Media’s checker.
If you’re experiencing connection problems, it could be that your broadband speed is too slow. You can check how fast your broadband speed is by using a Broadband Speed Checker online.
Superfast fibre broadband is not available everywhere. To find out whether your area has superfast fibre broadband, use a postcode checker to check for fibre broadband.
By using a postcode checker, you can find out whether Virgin Media offers broadband in your area. Virgin Media provides broadband to many cities in the UK, and are continuing to add more.
Virgin Media is the fastest available broadband that’s also the most widely available. Virgin Media offer full fibre Gig1 broadband across the UK with speeds of up to 1130Mbps.
So you finally have fast broadband? Check out our guide to install broadband.