Top 5 Broadband Deals!

The Gadget Show  Tuesday 23 August 2011

Choosing a broadband deal is an important choice that will affect just what you are able to do on the internet. Choose poorly and you may find yourself with a snails-pace link or a fast connection that will only let you download a few measly gigabytes before folding its arms and tutting at you about fair use.

Gamers are among the most demanding of broadband customers. The last thing you need when you are knee deep in a deathmatch is for things to st-st-start stu-st-st-st-ut-ut-ut-er-ing. A laggy connection could mean the difference between life and (virtual) death.

What you need to look out for

Speed: Raw speed is obviously the thing to aim for. The speed of your connection will depend on several factors but it is mainly down to the type of cabling that links your house to the exchange and how far away you are from that exchange. Many broadband providers have ‘speed check’ pages that will show you the estimated bandwidth in your postcode but be aware that these tend to err on the side of AMAZINGLY FAST! and take them with a pinch of salt.

You can get a good indication of your current broadband speed using the Gadget Show’s own speed test, courtesy of Think Broadband.

Fast uploads: Most packages stress their download speeds but uploads are important too. A decent upload speed ensures you can get a fast two-way connection between your computer and a server – very important for networked gaming but also crucial if you upload a lot of pictures or use ‘the cloud’ to store your files.

Five great broadband deals

These are our pick of the current crop of UK deals

Talk Talk Essentials

Dirt cheap at just £3.25/month for 9 months, then £6.50/month for the rest of the 12-month contract, Talk Talk Essentials offers speeds up to 24Mbps with a fairly generous limit of 40GB per month. Not great if you download a lot but a good combination of speed and price.

Virgin 100MB broadband

If your cable and exchange can handle it you can get up to an amazingly fast 100Mbps with this Virgin deal. A bit pricey at £35/month but you get unlimited downloads – a good thing too, at these speeds.

BE Unlimited broadband

BE offers no-frills broadband with fast speeds and good customer service. For £22/month you can enjoy up to 24Mbps with low latency.

O2 All-rounder

O2 offer ‘unlimited’ broadband at speeds around 20Mbps for roughly £13/month with unlimited downloads! The catch – you need to be an O2 customer, or the price jumps to a still not-bad £17.50.

BT Infinity

If you live in the right area (London, Cardiff and a few others at the moment, but growing) and have fibre optic cables linking you BT landline to the exchange, you can try out BT Infinity – up to 40Mbps down and 10Mbps uploads for around £25/month. There is no fixed limit on downloads, though BT reserve the right to throttle speeds if things get out of hand.