PC world map
No, it varies remarkably in speed and reliability. Some connections slow down to a crawl at peak times while the customer services offered by operators also varies hugely, ranges from the excellent to the disgraceful. This may seem very odd, since the vast majority of us get our broadband down the telephone lines owned by the same company, BT Openreach, and leading to the nearest BT exchange.
With gas and electricity, the actual product doesn't vary, only the pricing, so why is broadband different? The answer is that piping your broadband signal to the exchange is only part of the process. Most of the broadband operators, or ISPs as they are known, have their own equipment installed in rooms and cages that BT isn't even allowed to open.
Surely it's best to stick with BT since they own the line?
BT Broadband is actually very good, so it may seem a good idea to stick with them, and millions of people do. You can't help feeling, for instance, that if there were a fire, a flood or a major breakdown at the exchange, BT customers would be sorted out first. But experts insist that for price, speed and reliability it's best to shop around. To change broadband operator, your current ISP has to give you a MAC (Migration Authorisation Code) and since March this year it's been a legal requirement for them to do so on demand. Some smaller ISPs are reported to be still dragging their heels, though not BT.
So how does broadband work?
If you have broadband at home, it's almost certainly ADSL (or DSL as it's known in the States and by techies here). In the Eighties and Nineties, it was assumed that the entire country would have to be rewired with expensive fibre optic cables before we could have fast internet access at home. Then some genius invented ADSL, which can squeeze massively complex broadband signals onto old copper phone wires, even some dating back to the 1930s. In fact, old, thick GPO telephone wires conduct broadband signals rather better than some modern ones and can give you faster speeds.
The amazing thing about ADSL is that you can use your phone line for conversations or faxes at the same time as it's busy shoving all those megabytes of computer data backwards and forwards. Access to ADSL was once limited to big cities, but now available vitually everywhere in the UK. The snag is that the more wire it has to travel down the slower it gets, so in the country, it's often very slow - half or less a Megabit (not megabyte) Per Second (Mbps) - whereas in towns, and within a few hundred yards of an exchange, you can get up to 24Mbps - enough to download a whole film in half an hour or so.
What speed should I be looking for?
There's little reason to own a Ferrari if you can't drive it fast, and the expensive, superfast connections on the market are really only necessary for large offices and the keenest computer gamers. If you have fewer than three computers in your house, a 5Mbps or even a 2Mbps should do the trick. Even basic connections will be upgraded over the next few years, as downloading films from the internet supersedes the video shop, so if you stick with your current slower and cheaper supplier, you'll eventually catch up anyway.
There is one thing to look out for: if you are a long-standing customer of an ISP, they have a nasty habit of leaving you at a slow speed and high price while offering cheap, fast deals to new customers. So keep an eye on them and change ISP if they're not giving you the best deal (see 'Website watch' below)
What about cable and satellite broadband?
If you have cable TV and/or phone, your cable operator probably offers ADSL broadband too. This is quite separate from any BT line you might have. Cable can be very good but it's worth signing up only if you plan to get cable TV.
Are so-called 'free broadband' offers worth taking up?
You get what you pay for in this world, so if you're not paying for it, it's probably not very good. And if it is good, you're bound to be paying for it some other way.
Website watch
Thinkbroadband.com is a fount of all broadband wisdom. The site will help you compare ISPs in both price and quality and has a superb speed test which gives you a clear result in less than a minute. It will also intervene on your behalf if you're having a tough battle with an ISP. As a last resort, click on the name of the editor, Andrew Ferguson, and email him - but please don't overburden the poor chap.