Fast Broadband Deals

Technology is improving all the time and broadband is no different. We can now stream television, download films and music and, in order to keep up, broadband is getting faster and faster! Depending on your location, you can now get broadband speeds of up to 120Mbps!

Fast broadband: the UK's fastest broadband deals!

See who won the fastest broadband award in the annual uSwitch Broadband Awards

What is fast broadband? And what is broadband speed?

The speed of your broadband signifies the speed at which information transfers from the internet to your computer. So a connection speed of 8Mbps can transfer eight megabytes of information per second.

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 120Mbps, a speed that allows consumers to download songs in a matter of seconds and movies in minutes and is only available with Virgin Media.

Unfortunately, the 120Mbps service is currently solely on offer in areas where Virgin Media has updated its fibre optic broadband network. However, Virgin Media's 100Mbps service is also super fast and is much more widely available. If you're an urban area, there's a very, very good chance of you being able to sign up.

BT's Infinity broadband service and Plusnet's top-of-the-range broadband offering feature almost as impressive speeds of up to 76Mbps, so it too can transform how you use the internet and facilitate speedy downloads of content and massively improve your online gaming experience.

Alternatively, you can opt for fibre broadband from EE, John Lewis, Sky or TalkTalk - all of which promise a headline speed of up to 38Mbps.

Compare BT Infinity broadband packages BT Infinity

How fast is your broadband?

You can quickly and easily test the speed of your current connection on our state-of-the-art speedtest.

Bear in mind that your broadband speed for any service that uses copper wire at any stage depends on 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 0.5Mbps if you are signed up to a standard ADSL broadband package which is delivered to your home entirely by the same, ageing copper wire that provides you with your home telephone signal.

Only Virgin Media fibre broadband customers are completely guaranteed the speed advertised when they signed up. This is because the connection is delivered completely by fibre optic cables, which are capable of carrying signals long distances without it degrading.

Rival UK fibre broadband providers' fibre broadband products use a combination of fibre optic cables and traditional copper wire. The result is that although these offer faster speeds than ADSL broadband services, they are still affected by the distance they have to travel to your home.

Fast mobile broadband

Mobile broadband speeds are still quite inferior to those of home broadband, especially cable broadband. However, the arrival of faster 4G mobile broadband in the UK in 2012 means you can expect these to get much, much faster in years to come. The result of this will be that mobile broadband will become a much more viable alternative to home broadband than 3G services ever were.

Compare fast mobile broadband packages on our dedicated page.