Providers of broadband internet access in the UK
Listings of unlimited, capped and pay as you go broadband ISPs, guides, directories and reviews
of providers. Note that ADSL ISPs will generally be companies reselling
the BT service, sometimes with enhancements. Also, note that prices
fluctuate over time, and this page may not be up to date.
| links to BT, Orange, Pricerunner, Sky,
Tiscali, Virgin Media and USwitch include advert links |
Comparisons
Providers
-
Up to 24Mb broadband on selected exchanges with a 5GB transfer limit costs £15.31 monthly with
£40 activation.
Recommended by reviewers (see links at top of page),
reliable enough for companies to use and friends who chose have it at
home. Better customer service, but somewhat more expensive than
cut-price rivals.
-
BT's up to 20Mb broadband (Option 1) is £14.49 per month (£7.49 first 3 months with an 18
month contract) with a 10GB transfer limit per
month. Includes a free wireless modem and connection.
You can add BT Vision, which is a digital TV recorder to record Freeview
programs for £14.99 per month (£7.50 for the first 3 months) on a 12 month
contract and £15 for the Vision+ box..
-
10Mb
broadband with telephone and cable TV is currently £24.50 per month
(£11.99 for the first 2 months). Currently offering free
installation.
One problem with cable is that there is little competition - you can't
switch cable providers. With BT you have a much larger range of switching and
pricing options. To move back to BT you need to switch to ADSL
and potentially sign up with BT for 18 months to have a telephone line
reinstalled.
Virgin Media's speed in general is good,
mail downloads quickly and file downloads are speedy. It can be connected to Linux very easily.
History: NTL merged with Telewest and rebranded as Virgin Media after buying Virgin Mobile.
Discussions of the service are available on Nthell:world
and Cableforum.co.uk.
-
TalkTalk offer inclusive (free) 24Mb broadband for a total of
£18.48 per month (inclusive of line rental), 40GB monthly download cap,
wireless router and 18 month contract.
-
Up to 20Mb broadband with a 10GB monthly download cap costs £10 per month with wireless
modem on an 18 month contract (a BT phone line is required).
Broadband and line rental is available for £20.
A £3 per month saving on all products is available to pay monthly
Orange mobile customers with a 12-month contact. See Orange's site for details of mobile phones, or see the
mobile
phone page for cheap Orange retailers. History: The Orange ISP
was formerly known as Wanadoo and Freeserve.
Inclusive 2Mb ADSL from Sky
A Sky TV, phone and broadband triple-play package costs from £26.50
per month (currently £60 setup).
This consists of Sky provide inclusive 2Mb ADSL with their satellite
TV, which includes a 2GB monthly download cap and free wireless
modem. TV packages cost from £16.50 per month,
with an upfront £15 connection fee (Sky+HD box costs £49 with a £30
connection fee). You will need
a BT phone line or take their phone service (£10 per month).
8Mb costs an
additional £5, and 16Mb an additional £10. These services are
available to up to 70% of the UK population.
-
Up to 8Mb ADSL access costs from £5.99 per month for a 12 month contract with
10 GB per month usage allowance, free modem and setup. After 12
months if you are in their low-cost areas you continue to pay £5.99 per
month, otherwise you pay £11.99.
-
BeThere's 24Mb broadband
BeThere's 24Mb broadband costs £17.50 per
month and includes unlimited usage. Their 8Mb service costs £13.50 per month,
and free connection.
-
Offer 8Mb broadband at £12.23 per month (£7.34 to O2 customers,
including Pay-as-you go customers) with free connection, modem and filters
to customers within their O2 broadband area (where they have enabled local
exchanges).
-
ADSL from AOL UK
(now part of Carphone Warehouse)
Offer 8Mb broadband at £14.99 per month (currently £4.99 per month
for 3 months). Connection, modem and filters are currently free.
-
Offer a business 16Mb service with a 25GB cap for £14.50
(ex. VAT) per month.
-
Their 2Mb service costs £14.99 per month if you live in their
limited catchment area (free setup). £49.99 router.
Their 16Mb broadband
using costs £24.99 per month (with limited
geographical availability) with a 12 month contract. Free
connection, £49.99 router. It's available to
those living within 2km of an enabled exchange, and with good line
quality.
-
ADSL 4 Less pay as you go and
unmetered ADSL prices Unlimited 512Kb access costs
£14.99 per month with £58.75
connection for a 12 month contract (or a
£14.99 migration fee). Offer a modem and microfilters for £42.99
including P&P.
8Mb pay as you go access costs £11.99 per month if a year's access is bought in
advance with a 2Gb download cap (1GB
costs £1.75).
-
Tesco ADSL broadbandA 512Kb service with a 3GB per month cap costs
£13.67. Their 2Mb service with
a 10GB limit costs £19.55 per
month.
-
Demon Home is £17.61 per month for a 8Mb service with unlimited
downloads, free setup and
modem.
-
8Mb broadband from £11.50 per month, a 1GB peak hours limit and free setup.
-
A 8Mb service with 3GB download cap is available for £14.95 with free
setup and modem.
Business ADSL from Easynet
from £59 per month excluding VAT
-
UK
satellite providers is still an unstable market. Google
has this same list ordered by popularity.
Other broadband listings:
- Dmoz's list of UK DSL,
Cable
and Satellite ISPs
(the Google versions are DSL,
Cable
and Satellite
and order the sites by popularity).
- Dmoz's mainly US DSL
and Cable
ISP listings which cover many smaller providers (the Google versions are DSL
and Cable
and order the sites by popularity).
- Whichisp.com features broadband
provider listings, as well as unmetered and subscription-free ISPs.
- Cable-modems.co.uk
features information for cable modem users and forums for discussions.
- Robin
Walker's Cable Modem Pages - Troubleshooting tips covering both NTL
and Blueyonder services.
-
Advantages of broadband
- Faster access
- Pages download much faster - extra bandwidth and lower latency
means web pages arrive noticeably faster.
- Downloads of Windows updates (as well as Anti-virus and Firewall
software) are much faster.
- Uploads are much faster if you upload data to web sites.
- Instant on - no 20 second dial-up time when you first decide to
access the internet.
- Easily shared between multiple computers and consoles using home
and wireless networking.
No noticeable slowdown for small numbers of computers.
- Can be used for internet telephony
or VoIP, which could cut the cost of telephone calls.
- No worries about rogue dialers - connecting via an ADSL modem the
computer can't be persuaded by rogue programs to dial up expensive
phone numbers (as long as the regular modem is disconnected).
- Unlimited, fixed cost packages are available - meaning no concerns
about leaving the service on all the time.
-
Disadvantages of broadband
- Not available everywhere equally - some users won't be able to
access broadband over their telephone line (see satellite
access), or
won't be able to access the very highest speeds.
- Usually access is by monthly subscription, so you will still pay for
the service even if you aren't using it.
- Initial cost of hardware and connection can be substantial for some
packages.
-
Speed tests
Numerous sites offer speed tests to check your download speed, the best
include:
-
Calculating current internet usage
Programs such as Netmeter
calculate the amount of data transferred across a connection. If you
are considering moving from an uncapped contract (or dial-up) to a capped
contract you should calculate how much bandwidth you use (to calculate
whether it is worthwhile).
Buying wireless networking hardware and home networking
Wireless
Networking has price comparisons of ADSL modems, routers and wireless networking
products, including micro filters, wireless adapters and combination modems and
routers.
See the home networking page for home
networking how-tos.
If
you can't get, or don't want broadband, why not try unmetered
internet access?
|
Add commentNOW- Next generation broadband
Can anyone help with the technology behind NOW broadband services? Security etc? Seems great so far though?-- shiku wanjiku on February 19, 2006 11:17 AM (view details)
looking for broadband deals
I was interested in getting free broadband with sky, but after doing some research, I found forums like this one http://forum.moneysupermarket.com/forums/thread/1458.aspx saying that this would be a very bad idea. Although I did find this comparison site, from one of the forums which had companies I had never even heard of, and it was really helpful
http://www.moneysupermarket.com/broadband/ I ended up going with a package from eclipse.
-- vito mills on November 08, 2006 02:31 PM (view details)
Add ukfsn.org to your ADSL list
I've found the
UK Free Software Network gives
good service, and their ADSL packages are in the range of the more competitive deals, eg. basic rates are:
£16.50 per month for 8MB Bandwidth 3GB peak and 30GB off-peak allowance.
or, Pay As You Go:
£14.98 per month for 8MB Bandwidth 1GB plus £1 per GB
Robert - a customer of theirs
-- Robert Paynter on March 13, 2007 10:42 PM (view details)
Another helpful site
You might want to add UK Broadband World to the list above. The live checker shows the distance from the exchange on google maps and interactively lists the products and deals available for loads of broadband ISP providers.-- david burbage on July 10, 2007 11:05 AM (view details)
Top 10 Broadband (final try!)
Top 10 Broadband - that good broadband site I have suggested in 2 previous posts!-- Wez Atkins on September 03, 2007 01:08 PM (view details)
Also try this site for comparison
Try this site to compare broadband providers: BroadbandCheck-- Paul Watson on January 27, 2008 04:20 PM (view details)
useful broadband site
Hopefully you will find this site a useful resource if you are looking for broadband http://www.broadband-expert.co.uk-- Rich Patterson on January 27, 2008 07:11 PM (view details)
Satellite DSL
This is an excellent article about DSL. However,
satellite DSL should be considered as an alternative,
particulary in rural areas without regular DSL access.-- Lawrence Davis on February 21, 2008 08:59 PM (view details)
Mobile Broadband
A full mobile broadband price comparison can be found at mobile-broadband.co.uk
-- Rob Malvisi on April 23, 2008 10:02 AM (view details)
UK broadband information
You can find all the latest UK Broadband news, broadband speed test and information on mobile broadband at http://www.broadbandwatchdog.co.uk-- Mark Ward on July 16, 2008 02:25 PM (view details)
...and another one!
Couple more from Broadband Genie to throw into the ring, one for broadband and one for mobile broadband. Definitely the nicest designs and the best editorial :)-- Rick Heath on October 28, 2008 05:53 PM (view details)
Not sure if this is of help?
Hey there,
Not sure if this is of help, but I have been working on a site www.adslgeek.comwhich has a few resources that might be relevant to DSL in the UK?
Keen to hear your feedback, :-)
Cheers
Aslan.
ADSL Geek - Broadband and DSL stuff-- Aslan Jones on March 06, 2009 09:43 AM (view details)
Broadband Providers UK
You can also compare broadband
providers , read the latest broadband
news and find cheap broadband deals to get a faster broadband speed at http://www.broadbandproviders.co.uk-- Martin Chamberlain on September 18, 2009 01:09 PM (view details)
Helpful pay as you go broadband site
Pay as you go mobile broadband is pretty new in the UK, and a great way for light users to save money and gain some extra flexibility (no contracts, yay!), PAYG Mobile Broadband has a ton of info and reviews on finding the best PAYG package.-- Craig House on September 21, 2009 04:41 PM (view details)
Broadband Internet
If you're looking for more in-depth broadband information and guides broadband internet offers some great info on UK broadband services available.-- Craig House on September 21, 2009 04:43 PM (view details)
Broadband speed test
Looking at around for quality broadband speed test websites. Top 10 Broadband's broadband speed test is pretty strong, but someone needs to look into something that measures broadband speed in a much, much better way with cleverer tools. UK broadband users deserve a better one. Over to you technical geniuses!-- Wez Atkins on October 06, 2009 10:34 PM (view details)
Problems with broadband
Hi! Just came across this site and thought I should mention this. Sure broadband is great, most times. But sometimes when switching over it horrible being without internet, when that happened to me, I used www.connect4free.co.uk and I was browsing pay as you go till i switched back to my current supplier. Good stuff.-- Tola Fam on November 18, 2009 03:32 PM (view details)
External Antennas for Broadband Wireless
Don't give up straightaway if your 3G signal is weak. Try an external antenna
More Info: http://www.rfshop.co.uk/blog/Mobphoneant/-- Peter Martin on January 06, 2010 05:31 PM (view details)
Fibre Optic Broadband
Cable.co.uk has lots of comprehensive guides, news, comparison guides, broadband speed tests and information on broadband as well as fibre optic broadband.-- Paul France on March 14, 2010 09:39 AM (view details)
Move to Sky is a big No No!
Commenting on your Sky question, basically Sky are pushing their LLU package (broadband with phone line) which means your phone line is moved from the standard BT equipment in the exchange to the Sky kit. This seems fine however if you have issues with the connection and want to move back to BT they charge you £44 migrations. This is because an engineer has to go to the exchange and move the cables back to BT.
At www.smithmediagroup.co.uk we offer an unlimited LLU package for £19.99 but we also offer a £24.95 option which keeps the line on the BT network, which I would always recommend.
hope this helps!
Clive
-- Clive Smith on May 19, 2010 11:53 AM (view details)
Don't give up
Don't give up straightaway if your 3G signal is weak. Try an external antenna
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