You may have recently heard or read reports that have shown that a fibre optic broadband connection gives you a much faster and consistent internet connection than conventional ADSL broadband internet connections. Therefore, you may be asking yourself whether you can get fibre optic broadband.

Enter your postcode

The answer to this question will depend on where you live, as unfortunately the fibre optic broadband network has not reached the whole of the UK as yet. To find out if you live in a cable area you can go to our availability checker and input your postcode. This will immediately tell you if you can receive fibre optic broadband in your area.

If you find out that you cannot receive fibre optic broadband then that is unfortunate, although do not give up hope as it is possible that the cable network will be extended to your area in the near future. If you find out that you can receive fibre optic broadband then you have to first consider your installation.

As fibre optic broadband does not use the existing copper telephone wire in your house there is a good chance that you will have to have an engineer from Virgin Media (the supplier of fibre optic broadband in the UK) come to your house to install a connection. This will involve running a cable from the local network point to a small junction box that is normally discreetly attached to the outside of your house.


Often this will mean running a cable under your front garden. If you own your house, then having fibre optic cable installed is unlikely to be a problem. However, if you are renting your home you will need to get permission from the landlord before the installation can go ahead. Also, for flats, or other unusual homes, there may be other policies that you will have to abide by, depending on the situation.

Inside your house the engineer will run wires (normally around the bottom of the skirting board) to computer, telephone and TV points (depending on the service you have requested). These will normally be very discreet and are unlikely to cause any problems. It is possible that a previous occupier of your house had fibre optic cable installed (either from NTL or Virgin Media) and in these cases there will be no major new installation work required.

The special equipment you need for fibre optic broadband, such as the previously mentioned junction box, will be supplied by the cable company when they install the connection. All you require is a PC or Mac with an Ethernet port to connect to the internet.

Should you require any special networking requirements you will probably have to buy this equipment yourself as the cable company will probably only supply a cable modem and perhaps a wireless router, which should be sufficient for most ordinary needs.

The installer give you a full demonstration on how to use all the equipment before they leave and will give you user guides for all the services and equipment. So even if you are not very confident when using technology you should have no troubles using your fibre optic broadband connection.