Beginner's broadband

Beginner's broadband explained

At some point we are all broadband beginners, some people are beginners before they reach 10 years of age, others turn to broadband later in life. No matter where on the scale you fall we can help you take your first clicks.

What is broadband?

Broadband is a term used to describe a way to connect to the internet across a platform with a wide bandwidth. Essentially broadband allows you to connect to the internet at speeds 160 times faster than dial-up. The advent of broadband spelled the end of waiting for pages to load and unleashed the opportunities that the web holds for sharing content, viewing video on demand and communicating in ways previously impossible.

Types of broadband:

• Cheap broadband - this one is pretty self-explanatory. As a basic user you should not be paying through the nose for your internet connection.
• Fast broadband - though you may not notice the difference between 1 and 24Mb download speed at the moment, as you become more savvy this is something that you will recognise and appreciate. Generally anything up to 8Mb should suit your needs.
• Wireless broadband - will you be connecting to the internet on a laptop? You may wish to consider a broadband and free wireless router package.
• Mobile broadband - allows you to connect to the internet from your laptop wherever you are as it runs over mobile phone networks.

Factors to consider when choosing broadband:

• Location - where you live will determine, to a certain extent, your choice of broadband providers, enter your postcode into the postcode checker on our homepage to see which packages are available in your area.
• Reliability - when it comes to assessing the reliability of broadband providers, personal reccommendations are always worth listening to - speak to your family and friends. See who won the customer satsifaction award in the recent Top 10 Broadband awards to find out who are the people's favourites.

Overall we believe that all of the major broadband providers now give a good broadband service, there are no obvious providers to avoid in our opinion. Your choice will come down to what you can afford, the type of broadband you want and the suitability of the deal available.

You have nothing to fear, by selecting one of the above packages- whichever seems most appealing, you will soon be up and running with easy to use broadband in your home.

The above packages have been hand-selected for beginners like yourself to choose from, if you would like to compare all broadband packages see our home broadband page.