How to find the best internet providers in Manchester
Manchester’s broadband is in good shape. Whether you’re in Chorlton, Collyhurst, Rusholme or Moss Side, you’re likely to have an extensive range of broadband choices.
Almost all homes in the area have access to superfast fibre broadband, from popular providers such as Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and BT.
Meanwhile, almost 80% of you can sign up to ultrafast full fibre broadband deals (with download speeds up to 1Gb and beyond), and more homes are getting upgraded every day.
The combination of services you can sign up to will be unique. You might even find you have different options than a neighbour just down the road.
If you’re looking for the best home broadband deals in Manchester, enter your address into our deals checker. This will filter the results to make sure you’re only shows broadband packages available at your door.
What are the fastest broadband deals in Manchester?
Manchester now has over 97% superfast broadband coverage (packages with speeds of 30Mb+).
Plus, a staggering 88% of premises can sign up to broadband deals with download speeds of 1 gigabit or more. This would be either through an Openreach provider, Virgin Media cable or an independent altnet provider.
Find out more about alternative networks in our guide: ‘what are altnets?’
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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 in Manchester
If you’re looking for a speedy broadband package, but don’t have access to a full fibre internet connection using the Openreach network, you may have better luck signing up to Virgin Media.
Around 60% of properties in Manchester can sign up to a Virgin deal. Its Gig1 package offers a high-speed connection with an average download speed of 1.1Gb. There’s also an even faster 2Gb service available, although you’ll need to check our address checker to find out if you can sign up.
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What is fibre broadband?
Fibre optic broadband is a service that provides fast internet speeds using fibre optic cables. It’s much faster and more reliable than ADSL broadband, which uses copper telephone wires.
Fibre optic broadband is now available in every part of the country, and for a basic package, it never costs much more than slower ADSL per month.
The majority of fibre broadband deals are also known as FTTC or ‘Fibre-To-The-Cabinet’ Broadband. This is available on the BT Openreach network. FTTC uses fibre optic cables that connect to your nearest telephone cabinet. Keep an eye out for the green boxes you see on the side of the road - those are the cabinets.
From the cabinet to your home, data then carries on across the same copper telephone wire as a standard ADSL broadband service.
Fibre broadband is also sometimes referred to as ‘Superfast’ broadband. With fibre you can expect to receive a minimum speed of 35Mb.
But more and more networks across the UK are being upgraded to offer a much faster type of broadband known as 'full fibre'. Sometimes you might see this being referred to as 'Fibre To The Premises', 'Fibre To The Home' or 'FTTP' (they're all the same thing).
Instead of copper telephone wire making up the final part of the journey from that green cabinet on the street, fibre optic cables are installed right up to your home.
It’s amazing the difference in speed this small data journey can have. With full-fibre broadband you can expect to receive fast speeds of 1Gb+.
The downside is full-fibre is only available to a small percentage of homes in the UK, and it’s taking a good while to get everyone up to speed.
What is the average broadband speed in Manchester?
| Average Broadband Download Speed in Manchester | 156Mb |
| Average Broadband Upload Speed in Manchester | 50Mb |
Who’s the best internet provider in Manchester?
The perfect broadband deal will be different for everyone, depending on how you use your home internet and the monthly price you’re prepared to pay.
When you’re looking for a broadband deal to suit you, don’t forget to make the most of our filters, especially if you’re looking for extras such as bundled home phone evening and weekend or anytime calls. If you’re keen on including a TV service, you can check this too. Once you can see your results, you’ll be able to sort by speed, contract price, setup fee or monthly cost.
Make sure to read the ‘offer details and pricing’ for notes on extras you may have to pay for things like line rental, or if any price rises are likely to happen during your contract term. Sadly, it’s now common for broadband providers to add on a price increase every spring, even if you’ve just signed a contract.
Finding cheap broadband deals in Manchester
If you’re after a very cheap internet deal in Manchester, you should be able to kit yourself up with a broadband only deal for less than £25 per month. Longer contract lengths always tend to work out cheaper, although obviously, this comes with more commitment.
Even the most basic part-fibre packages that rely on a phone line will be plenty fast enough if you’re a light user and just need to use your broadband connection for email and web browsing. You won’t have to spend much for reliable broadband.
Visit our cheap broadband deals page for more advice on how to get the best value package.
And if you’re currently receiving benefits, you could be eligible for discounted broadband packages that you won’t find in any comparison table.
For more help and information, head to our social tariff guide.
Comparing mobile broadband in Manchester
Manchester is well catered for when it comes to mobile broadband. You should be able to receive a strong 4G or 5G signal from EE, O2, Vodafone and Three mobile networks as far out of the city in all directions as far as Salford, Collyhurst, Trafford Park and Hulme.
Because of the decent network coverage, you might also like to consider Three’s 4G or 5G home broadband deals. Unlike other home broadband packages, these won’t require any fixed line and could be an excellent option if you live in rented accommodation and don’t want to (or can’t) get permission for broadband installation from your landlord.
Before buying any mobile deal, you should confirm coverage for yourself. Click the logos below to access the official network signal 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 broadband speed information: labs.thinkbroadband.com/local
- Mobile broadband coverage (1): nperf.com
- Mobile broadband coverage (2): checker.ofcom.org.uk/en-gb/mobile-coverage