Welcome to superfast BT fibre broadband
The next generation of broadband has finally arrived. ADSL has been with us for many years, but the cracks in the UK’s ageing copper network are really showing and technology has moved in. If you’re tired of paying for unreliable connections with speeds far lower than estimated, the widespread arrival of BT superfast broadband will be a very welcome sight.
BT fibre optic vs ADSL
The old ADSL broadband internet we’ve had for years is coming to the end of its life. The UK’s copper telephone network was never built with global digital communications in mind and we reached the limits of its capabilities a while back.
The future is fibre optic.
BT fibre optic broadband uses futuristic fibre optic cabling to transmit data with beams of light. This means you don’t suffer the signal degradation experienced with ADSL on copper lines, so it doesn’t have the same problems with exchange distance, and internet connections are much, much faster.
How fast? Right now, BT fibre broadband comes in two tiers: up to 38Mb and up to 76Mb. However there are also trials for speeds of up to 330Mb and the technology is capable of going far beyond this, to an amazing 1Gb or further. That means you could grab HD movies and big game downloads in moments, and there’ll be no more waiting around for iPlayer to stream the latest episode of Strictly Come Dancing.
BT fibre also offers speeds very close to those quoted, so if you buy BT Infinity at up to 76Mb, you’ll get 76Mb or extremely close to it. No more ‘up to 24Mb’ connections running at under 10Mb.
The speed is of course the big advantage of BT fibre broadband. While it is not as cheap as ADSL broadband (though prices are falling all the time) you get a significantly faster connection which is ideally suited to downloading big files and streaming HD videos.
Is BT fibre optic broadband in my area?
BT fibre covers a large area of the country with over 60% of the population having access to the service. This is largely bigger towns and cities but more locations are being added all the time.
Finding out whether you can get fibre is really easy using Broadband Genie’s search tools. Just tap your postcode into the box in our comparison table above and we’ll display any available BT fibre products.
You can then use our deals table to compare offers and find the cheapest, or best, offer to suit you. Don’t forget you can also read reviews from other BT fibre users.
If you can’t yet get BT fibre optic broadband it will say there are no deals available, but don’t worry - chances are that unless you live in a remote location it will be coming to your home soon, so keep c
hecking back.
Other ISPs such as TalkTalk and Sky also offer fibre broadband so this may also be available in areas with BT fibre, however some big companies like O2 have yet to provide fibre optic broadband. There is also Virgin Media cable internet, which does also use fibre optic cabling but is not as widespread as the BT fibre network.
