Lab

Broadband

Our perception of broadband is changing. It was once an exciting technology that liberated us from our clunky modems. But the honeymoon is over, and many of us now see it as an essential service at best, and just another utility to pay for at worst.

Because of this, we decided to conduct a survey to see if our readers are getting good value and good service from their broadband suppliers. We had an amazing response, with more than 22,000 broadband users filling in our survey. Here we're going to use that information to help you choose the right internet service provider (ISP).

Thanks to our survey we now have a great overview of broadband ISPs and packages in the UK. Read on to see if your provider is giving you a good service, or whether it's time to switch.

Speed, download limits and cost are all vital elements when choosing a broadband provider, but you shouldn't disregard customer service and extra features. This guide will help you pick the right ISP and the right package for your needs.

National service

Not all broadband packages are available to everyone in the UK. If you live a major town or city you are more likely to have access to the latest high-speed services. You can check your coverage on the individual provider's website, or use the Broadband Availability Checker at Samknows Broadband (www.samknows.com) to check on all the providers. This site also lists the upcoming activation of local exchanges, so you can see if high-speed services are coming to your area soon.

Some packages are available only if you sign up to other services from that company. Sky Broadband, for example, is available only to Sky TV subscribers. TalkTalk's broadband service comes as a free extra when you take on line rental and a call package from the company, while to use Virgin's cable broadband services you will need to live in a cable-enabled area.

Many providers, including O2 and Orange, offer discounts to customers who sign up to multiple services. It's therefore worth considering packages from companies from whom you receive other services first.

Speed demon

Most ISPs offer services with download speeds of up to 8Mbit/s, although the fastest services offer up to 24Mbit/s. 'Up to' is a vague statement, however, and the speed of your service depends on a range of factors. These include how far you live from your telephone exchange, the quality of the wiring and the number of other people using the same service. In our survey most respondents saw download speeds of around half the advertised speed.

All the respondents to our survey tested their broadband connections at www.speedtest.net. We took the results for each speed from each ISP and averaged them. The resulting figure shows the kind of download speeds the average respondent on that service receives; it doesn't guarantee that you will get those speeds if you sign up. For a rough comparison, you can test your connection at the same site. To ensure our results were accurate, we dropped any ISP with fewer than 100 respondents. We also dropped any package with fewer than 50 speed tests.

Upload speeds are less important for most of us, as we tend to download more data than we upload. If you upload a lot of data, such as photos to Flickr or video to YouTube, it's worth looking at an ISP with fast upload speeds, such as Be.

Know your limits

Most ISPs used to offer unlimited downloads. However, with users downloading more and more data, many providers now put a cap on the amount you can download each month.

Some packages have a simple limit, such as 10GB. However, there's a lot of variation in what happens if you exceed this limit. Some providers charge you for exceeding your limit. Others will cap your download speed at peak times until your usage drops. Some will even ask you to move to a more expensive tariff if your excessive use continues. Many companies use what's called a 'fair use policy'. These set no limit on your usage, making them impossible to compare. If you download a lot of data and need high speeds at all times, avoid fair use packages.

Before choosing a broadband package, try to work out your monthly download usage. There are a number of usage calculators online (see www.mybroadbandusage.co.uk for PlusNet's calculator). However, most people find it hard to estimate how long they spend online accurately.

A far more accurate method is to install a utility that monitors your usage. Download Du Meter from www.dumeter.com, and you'll get a 30-day trial. Install it on every PC in your home, and at the end of the week or month view Totals and Reports to see your exact usage.

Service, please

There's more to a broadband service than speeds and download limits. Our survey asked a range of questions concerning customer service, the answers to which we then converted into scores for four categories. If you're not technically minded, we strongly suggest you choose a provider with high scores in the ease of setup and technical support sections. Even if you're well versed in broadband and networking, you should still take note of the reliability and customer satisfaction scores.

Extra, extra

Many broadband packages come with extra features. Most offer email, anti-virus and anti-spam services. This can be useful, although many people just use webmail services such as Gmail these days. Some packages also include webspace, while others offer domain names and static IP addresses for those who want to host their own personal websites. None of these packages is suitable for commercial use.

Many packages provide hardware, including USB modems and Ethernet and wireless routers. A cheap wireless router with ADSL modem costs from £40 though, so buying your own hardware may be a good idea, as free hardware usually comes with a lengthy contract attached. Some packages also come with anti-virus software.