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NOW TV Entertainment + Unlimited Broadband (No contract)
Comparing home broadband in Belfast
Comparing home broadband in BelfastGood news for Belfasts residents when it comes to home broadband, the area has wide access to everything from basic ADSL to super fast fibre optic broadband. All the exchanges have LLU providers for the best value packages from ISPs such as Sky and TalkTalk. And fibre is enabled for speeds of up to 76Mb using BT lines or up to 200Mb on the Virgin Media network.
But just because a particular broadband service is available at your nearest exchange it does not guarantee coverage to your home or business.
There are various factors in play such as distance from the exchange and whether fibre optic has been installed in your street. Virgin Media broadband in particular is not as widespread and you can run into situations where the neighbours can get it, but you can’t.
The first thing to do when comparing broadband is to tap your postcode into our comparison tables, like the one above. This will filter the results to show only deals which should be available to your property. After using the comparison table to find the best value package, click through to the ISP to perform a final check on availability before proceeding.
Fibre broadband coverage and speed in Belfast
|
Area
|
Superfast (24Mb+) coverage
|
Mean download speed
|
| Belfast East | 98.04% | 34.9Mb |
| Belfast North | 98.06% | 30.3Mb |
| Belfast South | 97.46% | 33.2Mb |
| Belfast West | 98.32% | 29.2Mb |
Source: Thinkbroadband (last checked 27/02/17)
The Superfast Northern Ireland project has to date allocated over £11m toward upgrading broadband across the country.
Belfast was the first place in Northern Ireland to get Fibre To The Premises (FTTP) from Openreach, with customers near the Belfast Royal Academy playing fields getting access to fibre broadband up to 330Mb.
Comparing mobile broadband in Belfast
There’s excellent coverage throughout Belfast on all four network operators. Three, EE, O2 and Vodafone report good indoor mobile internet in the city itself and often out into surrounding areas such as Newtownabbey, Dundonald, Castlereagh, Andersonstown and Carrickfergus. So if you opt for a 3G package you can be fairly certain of getting connectivity wherever you go. Three also provides its high speed DC-HSDPA 3G in Belfast, which offers much higher speeds that almost challenge 4G.
If you’re interested in 4G for mobile internet you're also spoilt for choice as all the networks offer this super speedy service in and around Belfast. However it is still not as widespread as the older standards so your device may regularly fall back on 3G, particularly outside central areas.
Whichever you decide, be sure to confirm coverage first. Either speak to the network, speak to friends and family and see how their devices perform in your area, or click the logos below to access the official coverage check tools:
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Once you’ve selected a network use our comparison tools to sort deals by price, data allowance and other criteria.
Mobile broadband speeds in Belfast
To give you an idea of the possible performance of mobile broadband in Belfast, the table below shows average 3G and 4G speeds from crowdsourced data gathered by OpenSignal.
|
Network
|
3G download / upload
|
4G download / upload
|
| EE | 9.7Mb / 1.8Mb | 30.0Mb / 10.4Mb |
| O2 | 8.4Mb / 1.8Mb | 16.0Mb / 8.9Mb |
| Three | 7.9Mb / 1.7Mb | 24.3Mb / 8.2Mb |
| Vodafone | 5.4Mb / 1.2Mb | 16.1Mb / 9.1Mb |
Source: OpenSignal (last checked 14/03/17)
