Welcome to More-boradband

There are so many companies supplying broadband we are hoping to help you find one that will suit your needs, as well as giving you some usefull hints and tips along the way.

First things first, what is broadband, and more importantly which type of broadband should you be looking for?

There are 3 main types of broadband available inthe UK at present, these are ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line), DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) and SDSL (Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line). ADSL simply put is broadband down your analogue (BT) phone line, DSL is broadband via your cable provider (Virgin, Telewest etc) and SDSL is again over an analogue phone line but it gives you the same upload as download (this is usually only used for large business due to the costs).

So what do we mean when we talk about upload and download speeds, well it is fairly simple your download speed is the capacity of your broadband to bring web pages and emails down your line and onto your computer. The upload speed is the opposite, this is the capacity that the broadband can send an email up your line and out to the Internet. With ADSL the upload is usually (almost always) lower than the download, typically 0.4mb on an 8mb connection, however this can be upgraded to 0.8mb if your provider can support it. As most people tend to surf the Internet and download stuff you don't always realise that the upload is so slow. If you compare these figure with SDSL, the upload and download are the same, so an 8mb download would give you an 8mb upload, but SDSL prices can be fairly high at present and only businesses that require a high upload speed should consider it.

Another element that you need to consider when buying broadband is the contention ratio. These are usually either 50:1 or 20:1 for ADSL and 1:1 for SDSL. Put simply, the bandwidth at the telephone exchange is shared out amongst either 50 or 20 connections, so if the exchange has a bandwidth limit of 100mb and you are on a 50:1 contention ratio and everybody goes online together then you are only going to get a maximum of 2mb download, therefore the smaller the contention ratio the better, however the smaller the ratio the higher the costs.

The ultimate download speed that you will be able to get depends on your physical distance from the BT Telephone Exchange, at present ADSL will only travel up to 5 miles from the exchange. If you are lucky and you can litteraly see the exchange from your house or office you should be able to get a full 8mb download (providing that is the service you choose), if you are 5 miles away you might be lucky if you get anything. If you can get a connection you will find it is probably only around 0.5mb, therefore if you are a long way from the exchange you are usually better off buying a 2mb download service, as you are never going to get above that speed due to the distance and it also tends to make the connection more reliable as well (it is also usually cheaper too), certainly don't go for 8mb you will only have problems as the exchange will try to send the signals down the line too quickly and they will just get lost on route.

If you are an ADSL subscriber you might want to find out when BT's 21CN upgrades are coming to your area. The 21CN upgrade (stands for 21st Century) is a program that invloves BT upgrading the exchanges to allow upto 24mb speeds. Many areas have already been upgraded so you might be able to get it already, however you might need to upgrade your router and connection. The upgraded lines are classed as ADSL2+, so you will need to make sure that your provider can supply ADSL2+ once your exchange has been upgraded (many providers currently don't offer it, More Solutions do) if you can get it then your router must also be able to handle the higher speeds, so you might need to get an ADSL2+ router, (again More Solutions can supply these).