Cable Broadband Providers
Virgin Media is the UK's largest cable broadband provider covering roughly half of the UK's population. Virgin Media as a cable broadband provider offers additional services such as digital TV and home phone. BT are currently building their infrastructure to provide their own fibre optic cable broadband.
 Providers of super-fast fibre (fiber) optic cable broadband, digital TV and phone packages that can be bundled together. Virgin also offer national broadband via ASDL and LLU for non-cabled areas. |  BT offer home broadband, phone and digital TV packages in the UK. Total Broadband offers up to 20Mb download speeds and BT Vision delivers digital TV via your existing TV aerial. |
Cable broadband is currently providing the fastest possible download speeds for loads of home users in the UK, and the single consumer provider of cable broadband is currently Virgin Media. Virgin Media customers have access to up to four different telephony and internet for the price of one single monthly payment.
Virgin Media are also the first UK company to offer fibre optic broadband services to UK users. To help unravel the cable broadband operating contingencies a little and to explain how cable broadband could be the right service for you let's examine how Virgin Media's technology works and the kinds of packages available.
Cable Broadband Technology
Most homes currently receive broadband internet directly down their existing BT telephone line, and that service is called ADSL. Whilst ADSL is widely available and cheap in basic forms it has several limitations on download and upload speeds which will deteriorate the further away your property is from your local telephone exchange. Cable broadband doesn't suffer from either of these problems.
This is because rather than using copper overhead wires which cause this slow down the cables are run underground and in the most modern networks use fibre optic technology. If you live in a cabled area, and just under 2/3 of UK households are eligible, then you could have access to a service of between 5Mbps and 50Mbps. The top speed is more than twice the theoretical maximum that ADSL can achieve and because fibre optic technology doesn't suffer from signal deterioration you'll always have access to the internet at that maximum speed.
That means that during off peak surfing hours you could download a full length movie in a matter of minutes or stream HD quality video from a website without having to wait for the content to load. As more and more websites are taking advantage of such online phenomena as music, photo and video sharing, having a connection that can cope with the increased amounts of data traffic is essential and cable broadband from Virgin Media can provide that.
Cable Broadband Bundles
Virgin Media pride themselves on providing the best value service bundles, and when moving to cable broadband it's sensible to consider including other communications services as part of the package to save on your overall monthly outgoings.
Including home phone and digital TV packages is popular as the basic digital TV package won't add to your monthly expenditure and will give you access to hundreds of on demand TV shows and movies via the Virgin Media video bank. You can even add on a mobile phone contract to your Virgin Media package should you so wish, though this may not be for everyone.
Cable Broadband Considerations
When you take a cable broadband service from Virgin Media you will have to pay installation charges depending on the package you choose and also a monthly line rental fee of around £11.
Bear in mind that you'll not need to be paying an equivalent sum for rental of your old BT line, and the best deals are always those which offer customers a bundle including other services. You'll have to check if your area is covered by a cable broadband network and high speeds will cost considerably more than lower rated packages.
15th March 2010 New research from Point Topic has suggested that the Tories' stance on fibre optic broadband will not benefit the party's voters. |
15th March 2010 New research has revealed that businesses would move to new premises in order to access faster broadband services. |
12th March 2010 The Conservative Party has revealed plans to use fibre optic broadband to boost the economy. |
11th March 2010 Fibre optic broadband provider Virgin Media has commissioned an artwork to celebrate the availability of internet services in the UK. |
11th March 2010 Plans to launch a new tax which will fund the introduction of fibre optic broadband across the UK have been defended by the government's Digital Britain minister. |
10th March 2010 The number of fibre optic broadband connections available across Europe is rising, a new report has revealed. |
09th March 2010 Consumer Focus has claimed the introduction of next generation broadband services across the UK should close the digital divide. |
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