Broadband, also known as ADSL, is a way for people to connect to the internet. Broadband offers much greater speeds than were available by connecting to the Internet through dial up. Broadband offers "Always On" availability that means users no longer have to connect and disconnect from the Internet and they can use as much or as little as they want for a monthly price.

Broadband in the UK is growing at a great pace and the number of deals from the broadband providers makes things very attractive!

It wasn't that long ago that most users to the Internet were paying for dial up Internet access and connecting through a 56k modem. Now, just a few years on we are already seeing up to 24mb broadband available with the introduction of ADSL2+ and on the fibre broadband front we are seeing 50Mb broadband from Virgin Media.To most all the number, figures and jargon surrounding broadband can be a bit confusing but then most people don't have a real need to know about it all and how it works so we are here to make that job that bit simpler for you.

You can check what broadband speeds and what broadband deals are available with them by selecting what speed broadband you would like to use. Standard broadband is 512k which is 10 times faster than dial up, although most broadband providers are offering much faster speeds than this now!

Broadband connecting at 2Mb | 4Mb | 8Mb | 24Mb | 50Mb

Despite all the different broadband speeds available these are usually theoretical maximum speeds, you can check how fast your broadband is running at by using our free broadband speed test which will show you your download and upload speeds.

We hope to help you make the right choice for your broadband provider and also help to make sure you can get it set up and working right so you don't have much of a problem.

In the UK the take up of mobile broadband has seen a huge increase and is becoming ever more popular as the prices start to come down and faster speeds become available. Mobile broadband is a part of broadband that will be vitally important as it opens up being able to use broadband from almost anywhere that there is a network connection from the provider. The providers of mobile broadband are the mobile phone companies who already have extensive moble networks across the UK so most users will be able to get good coverage.
Mobile broadband is available on fixed rate contracts or as pay as you go mobile broadband.

For starters, if you are wondering what the costs of broadband are then you need not worry, the cost of broadband is continuing to drop and prices are already in some cases as low or lower than dial up Internet has cost! You can compare broadband providers on this site to help you find out the best deals and offers available.

A few simple guidelines should help you make the right decision when you come to make your choice of broadband provider because everyone has slightly different requirements and needs from broadband. The occasional user who doesn't do much downloading probably needs a different deal than the person who does lots of downloading and uses the Internet frequently.

As a brief help users who are just going to be using the Internet for general surfing and emails are not going to need high bandwidth (bandwidth is the amount of data that is used by downloading and uploading) deals, but users who are going to be downloading lost of music and videos are going to need higher bandwidth deals or even unlimited bandwidth. Users who take out unlimited bandwidth deals should note that although there is no caps on the bandwidth users can use some broadband providers do implement fair usage policys that are targeted at those users who use excessive amounts of bandwidth, for the majority of users this will never be a problem or issue.

View our Broadband guide to help you with any questions you have to broadband related issues.

With broadband being "always on" there can be an increased chance of security issues although there is nothing hugely to worry about if you follow our Internet security advice you should find you have little or no problems with security.