Internet Connections

For most homes in the UK there is a choice of methods to connect to the internet.

If you don't use the internet very much or live in a very rural area then 56k dial up may be your choice to connect. Its pretty slow and ties up your phone line

The second option, and becoming very popular is ADSL or Broadband. This offers the benefit of being fast and not tieing up your phone line. Emerging technology in IP phones will soon mean that you can make several phone calls from your broadband connection. For most there are a choice of speeds ranging from 256k to 4mb [see broadband directory]. There are also versions of broadband vie satellite but our advice is if you can get the real think go for it. We found that satellite via Sat Drive was pretty poor in reliability and speed unless you paid for bandwidth.

ISDN is the third option, this gives you 64k using one channel or 128k using 2 channels. Using two channels can be expensive as very few un-metered ISP's will let you use both channels. While satellite and ISDN options do exist, they are probably the least desirable solutions.

Whilst we don't suggest that your internet connection should dominate your choice of home its well worth checking to see the options available. Check out our comprehensive directory of ISP's and broadband suppliers