Home broadband deals in Carlisle
Most homes and businesses in the Carlisle area should be able to get broadband using a regular telephone line over the Openreach (BT line) network. With only one exchange in central Carlisle and a few scattered around the outskirts, those at the very limit of the lines may find ADSL speeds fairly slow.
Fibre optic internet is an option in some locations. Central Carlisle has fibre over the Openreach network, giving speeds with an average of 65Mb, as do areas further afield such as Rockcliffe, Crosby-on-Eden, and Dalston.
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What is Openreach?
Openreach is the company that maintains the former British Telecom Network used for the majority of broadband and phone services. If a repair or installation is required, it’s Openreach who will send an engineer, not your provider.
More than 650 service providers using the Openreach network. That’s the majority of the UK’s broadband providers. This includes Sky, TalkTalk and BT. The exception to this is Virgin Media - it uses its own, separate cable network.
Virgin Media fibre is also available in some parts of Carlisle for ultrafast speeds of up to 1Gb.
While Carlisle enjoys reasonably good access to home broadband, smaller towns and rural locations in the area are benefiting from more than £18m in funding for infrastructure upgrades handled by the Connecting Cumbria project.
One easy way to see what’s available for your home is to enter your address into our deals checker.
You'll then see broadband deals that have been filtered by location, and only those providers offering service to home will be displayed. Don't forget you can filter the table by factors such as broadband speed, cost and internet provider. You can also filter to show specific types of offers, such as free-setup broadband or unlimited internet.
Availability can still vary from home to home, so you will need to run a further check to confirm, but your selected ISP will do this for you, in addition to providing a speed estimate.
Comparing mobile broadband in Carlisle
Carlisle and surrounding areas benefit from a good level of mobile signal coverage, enabling the use of at least 3G mobile broadband in both central and outlying locations such as Dalston, Burgh by Sands, and Longtown. Three, O2, EE, and Vodafone all report strong signal for indoor and outdoor use in central Carlisle and out to locations including Wetheral, Wreay, Great Orton, and Rockcliffe.
4G is also present in Carlisle from all the network operators. EE has also upgraded some masts in Carlisle to double-speed 4G, which is capable of up to 80Mb.
There is also some 5G coverage in Carlisle available on EE and Three in a few locations.
Mobile coverage is never guaranteed, however, so be sure to confirm signal strength before buying and mobile broadband package. Our guide to coverage has more detail, and you can also click the logos to access official coverage check tools:
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Where we get our information
We strive to keep our local broadband information as up-to-date as possible. This means using trustworthy sources with regular checks. The information on this page comes from the following:
- Local exchange information: Sam Knows
- Local broadband speed information: labs.thinkbroadband.com/local
- Mobile broadband coverage (1): nperf.com/en/map/GB
- Mobile broadband coverage (2): checker.ofcom.org.uk/en-gb/mobile-coverage