Features 

Ratings 

If you say a rating is extremely important, we'll only show you products that are rated as excellent or good. If you opt for fairly important, we'll also show you products rated as acceptable. If you choose 'Not at all' important, we'll ignore that rating. 

Additional Notes 

Price £ 

Cost per month 

Score 

This score is the percentage of people who said that, overall, they were very satisfied with the service. 

Type 

Shows whether the service is PAYG, capped or uncapped, and how fast it is. 1 Mbps or less is slow, 1.1-4 Mbps is medium, 4.1-8 Mbps is high and above 8 Mbps is very high-speed. 

Broadband sales phone number 

Phone number for sales only (unless otherwise stated) 

Maximum download speed (Mbps) 

The maximum advertised speed - applies to things like surfing the web or downloading media files. Actual speed will vary depending on your distance from the exchange and the number of people online at the same time. 

Maximum upload speed Mbps 

The maximum upload speed applies to things like sending emails or adding photos to online albums - it's often much slower than the download speed. 

Minimum contract term (months) 

If you want to change company within your minimum contract you'll have to pay a hefty fee. 

Free equipment? 

Whether you get your broadband equipment for free 

Equipment provided 

What type of equipment you get for free, such as standard modem, router, wireless router etc. 

If a customer switches to another ISP do they get to keep this equipment? 

Some companies that include equipment for free will require it back if you switch away from them - it's more of a loan than free equipment. 

Line activation £ 

Some companies charge a fee for setting up your phone line to support their broadband service. 

Cancellation fee £ 

The fee you will be charged if you cancel your service within the term of your contract. 

Bundled package? 

Whether the broadband service is bundled together with other services, such as telephone calls or digital TV. 

Line rental included? 

Whether the bundled service includes phone line rental. All broadband packages require you to have an active phone line, which means if line rental is not included you will have to pay another company, such as BT, for line rental. BT charges between £10.50 and £12.50 for phone line rental. 

Unlimited data transfer? 

Whether or not the service has a cap on the amount of data you can down- or upload every month. 

Monthly data transfer limit (GB) 

The limit on any data transfer. You'll pay extra if you exceed it. 

Data transfer limit conditions 

What happens if you exceed your data transfer limit. Some services have different limits depending on the time of day you use your service (eg unlimited between midnight and 6am). 

Cost for usage above data transfer limit (£/GB) 

If you exceed your cap, how much will you pay per GB of usage. 

Fair usage policy conditions 

Most 'unlimited' broadband packages have a fair usage policy, which comes into affect if customers are slowing down the broadband speed for others, due to 'excessive usage' 

Capped contention ratio 

The contention ratio is the maximum number of people who can be sharing your connection at a given time. This will affect the speed of your service. The lower the number, the better. 

No. of email accounts 

How many separate email accounts you can set up. 

Free web space (MB) 

How much web space is provided for you to set up your own web page. 

Cost of telephone support (£ per minute) 

How much it costs to call the ISP's technical help line. 

Mac compatible 

Whether the service is compatible with Apple Mac computers. 

Is service available with a static IP address? 

A static IP address will allow you to access your computer from anywhere in the world. This could be particularly useful if you work as an independent and need to access files remotely. 

Static IP details and costs 

Not all broadband providers offer static IP addresses. You may have to pay additional monthly charges for this service with some providers. 

Local loop unbundled (LLU) 

If the service is local loop unbundled (LLU), it allows the service to offer faster speeds and lower prices, but may make it more difficult to switch away. 

Package cost more if not in LLU area? 

Some packages are either unavailable, or cost more outside of the service provider's LLU areas. Where additional costs apply outside LLU areas, we list these as separate packages. 

Ease of set-up 

How well the ISP did for ease of set up in our latest customer satisfaction survey. 

Value for money 

How well the ISP did for value for money in our latest customer satisfaction survey. 

Customer Service 

How well the ISP did for customer service in our latest customer satisfaction survey. 

On-line Help 

How well the ISP did for its online technical help in our latest customer satisfaction survey. 

Telephone Help 

How well the ISP did for its telephone technical help in our latest customer satisfaction survey. 

Reliability of Connection 

How highly the ISP was rated for reliability of connection in our latest customer satisfaction survey. 

Connection speed 

How highly the ISP was rated for speed of connection in our latest customer satisfaction survey.