Broadband buying guide

These terms are the certain condition that must be considered when buying a broadband :

• Availability
• Speed, performance, and your browsing habits
• Bandwidth, Download Limits, and Fair Usage Policies

Availability

The first thing you should do before searching for a broadband package is perform a local availability test to see whose services you can sign up for, as there's little point in comparing prices and services of all the available packages if you can't actually receive all of them.
The majority of broadband connections in the UK are made through copper wire phone lines, and so the availability of an ISP's broadband services will depend on if they have installed their equipment in your local telephone exchange. Broadband services provided over a phoneline are generally referred to as ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) services. The service is 'asymmetric' because the achievable download speeds over the phoneline are generally faster than the upload speeds; most home internet users download rather than upload files, which is why ADSL is marketed towards home customers.
Most other broadband services are delivered to households through a fibre optic cable line - again, availability will depend on if you live in an area where a cable network has been installed.
You can perform an availability test by typing your postcode into the appropriate window on our main page, which will then provide you with a list of the ISPs who are operating in your postcode area.

Speed, performance, and your browsing habits

Once you know which services are available in your area, you should then consider what you use the internet for, and how important a fast connection is. Ideally, you will want the fastest connection possible, regardless of your browsing habits, but a fast connection speed is especially important if you intend on playing either PC or console games online, or downloading music and movies.
Broadband speeds are measured in Mbps, a rate of data transfer equal to how many megabits per second can be transferred to your computer from a website or another user's computer - for example, a three and a half minute long music file in MP3 format is roughly equivalent to 3MB, therefore you would in theory be able to download one song every 4 seconds if you had a connection speed of 6Mbps or above.

ADSL and Cable

Several factors affect the performance and speed of your connection. A good rule of thumb for calculating your connection speed if you are signing up for ADSL broadband is to find out how far away from the nearest telephone exchange your house is - the closer you are to the exchange, the faster the speed will be.
Cable broadband networks are not affected by proximity to an exchange in this way: cable connection speeds are more dependent with the amount of user traffic in your local area, so if you live in a street where several people are accessing the internet via cable, then your net performance can be affected by this.

Bandwidth, Download Limits, and Fair Usage Policies

Bandwidth is a term used to apply to may things, usually to measure the capacity of a communications channel - in relation to broadband services, the 'channel' will either be an ADSL or cable phoneline. The majority of broadband packages will have a set monthly limit on how much bandwidth you can use, usually measured in gigabytes (GB).
The monthly limit, often called a download cap or usage limit, reflects how much information you can download in one month, including music and video files, updates and new patches for your programs. Using the above example, downloading a 3MB MP3 music file will count against your usage cap, so in theory, a broadband service with an 8GB usage limit would allow you to download over 2700 MP3s a month.
However, usage limits do not apply to just file downloads. Visiting websites which have large animated frames and numerous links, retrieving attachments and sending/receiving emails, making VoIP calls, and using chat/IM services all count towards your monthly limit - because of this, it is more accurate to refer to a monthly cap as a usage limit. Usage limits can vary from sizes as small as 1GB to 10GB to 50GB, or more.

Unlimited Downloading and Fair Usage Policies

Many ISPs provide an unlimited monthly usage cap with their products, theoretically allowing you to download as much as you like. However, any 'unlimited' usage limit will be governed by a fair usage policy. A fair usage policy is in place to ensure that the internet service is not compromised by the heavier users. As stated above, this can be a particular problem on cable connections, as cable performance is dependent with the amount of traffic in your local area, so if you live in an area with several cable users, then your net performance can be affected by this.
With an unlimited broadband package, there will typically be an unspecified 'ceiling' limit, and once you exceed this then your connection may be temporarily slowed down or even cut for the remainder of the month; some ISPs have a policy where you will be charged an additional fee should you go beyond such a limit. Most users will rarely excessively use an unlimited usage allowance, but be sure to read through the terms and conditions of each ISP's fair usage policies before signing up.

Your browsing habits

As with connection speeds, the size of a download limit is worth considering in relation to your browsing habits. If you are planning on downloading lots of music or having multiple users sharing the same broadband connection, you will want to sign up for a package with a sizeable bandwidth allowance so you can use the net for whatever reason without any restrictions or slowdown. Casual and infrequent internet users find 2GB per month more than sufficient for emailing and messaging, although you may want something a bit bigger should you want to occasionally download or watch video clips online.

Source from : broadband finder