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.
02nd September 2010 Fibrecity contractors have cut a number of Virgin Media's connections in Bournemouth. |
01st September 2010 Neil Berkett of Virgin Media has argued that "urgent" changes need to be made to the way broadband speeds are advertised. |
01st September 2010 Dundee residents and small businesses will be able to download at speeds of up to 100Mb/s when work is complete on Fibrecity Holdings' new fibre optic broadband network. |
23rd August 2010 A new scheme to prevent people from watching Virgin Media channels for free has been launched. |
19th August 2010 England has the highest broadband take-up in the UK, according to a new report. |
19th August 2010 Fibre optic broadband could help to increase the popularity of BT Vision. |
19th August 2010 North-east England will get access to faster broadband thanks to a new initiative from BT. |
01st September 2010 With BT recently announcing the acquisition of its 15 millionth broadband customer, we thought it was the ideal moment to have a look at the company's best offers. |
27th August 2010 Both Virgin Media and BT offer some great value broadband bundles - it's just up to you to decide which one fits your needs the best. |
10th August 2010 Both BT and Virgin Media offer fibre optic broadband at some surprisingly cheap prices. |
04th August 2010 Virgin Media's broadband deals offer great value for money, especially when you sign up for one of its bundles. |
12th July 2010 Can Martha Lane Fox and the government succeed in getting everyone in the UK online by the London Olympics in 2012? |
09th July 2010 Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt reckons the UK could have Europe's fastest broadband in a few years' time. Is he right? |
24th June 2010 Do Virgin Media's plans to launch 400Mbps broadband put the company well ahead of its rivals? |
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