Broadband Guide

100Mb broadband

Updated: Tuesday 29 November, 2011

By Garnet Roach - garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

Both Virgin Media (www.Virginmedia.com) and BT (www.BT.com) offer a commercial 100Mb broadband connection offering speeds nearly 20 times the national average.

100Mb broadband providers

Virgin Media's up to 100Mb download, and 10Mb upload, speed package is already available to six million cable homes, and will continue its roll-out to nearly 13 million homes by mid-2010.

BT Infinity's 100Mb package was launched in November 2011, initially on a limited basis. While its top download speed matches that of Virgin Media's fastest connection, BT's package offers an upload speed which the provider claims is almost twice as fast as its chief competitor.

BT's fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network development is part of its £2.5billion fibre investment programme which will see BT's fibre network coverage increase from the current 20% of the UK population, to 40% by 2012, and rising to two-thirds of UK households by 2014.

With a 100Mb connection, customers can download an entire music album in as little as five seconds; a TV show in around 30 seconds, a high quality movie in as little as 1½ minutes and a high-definition movie in just seven minutes. It will also allow you to run several bandwidth-hungry applications at the same time without a slowing of connection speed making it ideal for multiple user households.

Independent fibre optic broadband suppliers

Superfast broadband is the way of the future, and BT and Virgin Media are currently leading the way, however it isn't only the big players who have made headway with such lightning-fast connections.

Some cities around the UK have developed their own fibre optic cable networks, and several smaller providers like Fibrecity, which has networks in Bournemouth and Dundee, and Hull-based provider KC, are already capable of delivering speeds in excess of 100Mb.

Superfast broadband packages

While the network coverage of Virgin Media and BT's 100Mb packages is increasing all the time, there are still lots of us who are outside of a fibre network area. If you are unable to get a fibre connection you might still be able to sign up to one of the faster copper wire ADSL packages offered by ISPs like O2 Broadband (www.O2.co.uk) and BE Broadband (www.Bethere.co.uk), which deliver speeds of up to 20Mb and 24Mb broadband respectively.

However, while ADSL packages are generally cheaper than fibre and definitely more widely available, they are also far more susceptible to speed reducing factors like distance from the exchange and congestion than fibre optic connections.