Fast broadband

Fast broadband explained

Technology is improving all the time and broadband is no different. The internet is totally changing the way in which we are interacting with the world. We can now stream television, download films and music and, in order to keep up, broadband is speeding up! In early 2009, Virgin Media announced super-fast broadband up to an astonishing 50Mb, bringing super fast broadband within everyone's reach.

Fastest broadband

See who won the fastest broadband award in our annual Top 10 Broadband awards

Fastest Home Broadband 2009

Fastest broadband award 2008

What is broadband speed?

The speed of your broadband signifies the speed at which information can transfer from the internet to your computer. So a connection speed at 8Mb can transfer 8 megabytes of information per second. That's roughly 160 times faster than a 56k speed dial up connection.

It is worth noting that the speed of your connection only refers to your download speed; your upload speed tends to be slower. Currently, the fastest high-speed broadband available in the UK is 50Mb, a speed that allows consumers to download songs in a matter of seconds and movies in minutes.

Compare all 50Mb broadband packages 50Mb Broadband

How fast is your broadband?

Test the speed of your current connection on our state-of-the-art speedtest.

Bear in mind that your broadband speed is defined by where you live and depends on a number of factors, including the distance of your house from the nearest telephone exchange. Even if you live just a few miles from a built up area, your broadband speed may drop down as low as 0.5Mb.

Currently, the best way of providing fast broadband is with fibre-optic cables, which is the technology used by Virgin Media. With fibre-optic cables in place, we could see broadband speeds shoot up to 100Mbps - putting to an end to the days of waiting hours for movies, songs and attachments to download.

In summary, it is clear that high speed broadband has arrived and fast broadband connections are becoming the norm.

Alongside, this development we have seen similar changes in the sphere of mobile broadband, with the result that you can now get high speed mobile broadband connections that compare to home broadband connections.

Fast mobile broadband

Mobile broadband speeds are still quite inferior to those of home broadband, especially cable broadband. Despite this, mobile broadband spees have increased from an average of 1.8Mb to more impressive speeds of 3.6Mb, 4.5Mb and 7.2Mb.

Compare fast mobile broadband packages on our dedicated page.