Moving House - Broadband Options

Hi

My girlfriend and I are moving house in June (Cambridge address) and I'm looking around for the best broadband options. Unfortunately it is not in an area where Virgin can give us what we currently have (30Mb).

We are having to move over to Sky for our television so I got a quote from them and have some other speeds from varying suppliers below. We really want the fastest possible, so any ideas on options we have missed would be greatly appreciated

Sky £22 per month - between 2.6Mb and 7Mb
Virgin £30.98 per month - between 1.6Mb and 4.4Mb
Orange / EE not sure of the price - Their site estimates 3.5Mb

I think we are 1.2 miles away from the exchange.. but I'm not certain of this. Any way to confirm this and what implications it will have?

For the most part we both use our computers online at the same time. Browsing internet, emails, gaming (Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft mostly) and online poker (Full Tilt / Pokerstars etc). Maybe I'm worrying for nothing and the speeds will be fine and only really affect us when we download large files and game patches. But I'd really like to get the fastest we possibly can.

Thanks guys

Richard

use the BT address checker

http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.Addres...

or the phone number of a nearby shop, pub etc for a speed estimate.

Do not use Virgin for ADSL.

Based the Virgin estimates, it suggests its not a cable area, so avoid Virgin ADSL product.

The Sky £22 per month, can I double check what this is made up of? As if that is the broadband cost alone (i.e. excluding line rental) then sounds like an off-net deal and again best avoided.

The estimates while varying will be across the same telephone line, so probably not that different in actual practice. Personally I would not be moving to a property that did not have an active broadband connection already, which lets you get a real idea of what speeds are possible.

The £22 quote from Sky included line rental, I think it was £14.50 line rental plus £7.50

Everything about the house is perfect for us, we just didn't check this out in advance as we assumed being in the centre of Cambridge it would be in a cable area. My main problem I guess is not knowing what speed is actually needed for the types of thing that we do online :/ as it's looking like we are stuck with getting around 3Mb.

Take a peek at http://maps.thinkbroadband.com/?utm_source=mainsite&...

you might see some actual speed test results near to where you are buying. Given the postcode I can also do another check - email me [email protected] if you don't want to post the postcode.

In reply to a post by reech23:

The £22 quote from Sky included line rental, I think it was £14.50 line rental plus £7.50

Everything about the house is perfect for us, we just didn't check this out in advance as we assumed being in the centre of Cambridge it would be in a cable area. My main problem I guess is not knowing what speed is actually needed for the types of thing that we do online :/ as it's looking like we are stuck with getting around 3Mb.

3Mbps in the centre of Cambridge, I cannot belive it, somethings wrong there surely.

You put the new house post code in Samknows and it will tell you what is available at your new house exchange.

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search

Click on checker locality and it will give the distance to new house exchange.

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker

For EE estimated speed you enter your post code. It just stated my speed is 8 Mbps but I get 11 Mbps.

https://broadband.ee.co.uk/home;jsessionid=E03AB0EC0...

Edited by deleted (Mon 20-May-13 17:39:31)

Thanks for the link

It seems we are 1.96km from the exchange, right on the edge of the green dots. Looks like we are about as far away as we could be

2.5km of wire will give you at least 6M, so it depends on routing.