Beginner's broadband

• Do you feel embarrassed when people make internet related jokes and you can’t laugh along?
• Do you feel threatened when your parents, children, work colleagues and friends speak of terms like megabyte and bandwidth?
• Do you want to wear the pants in your broadband connection?

Here are a couple of tips to help you make an informed broadband choice.

For all intents and purposes, broadband is a quick and easy way to connect your home PC or laptop to the internet. Broadband is all about speed, reliability and price, so when people are discussing their broadband, it's usually these things that come up.

The speed of your connection to the internet determines how fast your pages load, how quickly you can download music or watch videos online.

The speed of your connection depends on two key factors:

• Where you live- urban areas generally have faster broadband speeds. Additionally, the distance of your house from the telephone exchange has a bearing on the speed that you can expect. Use our postcode checker to find the fastest broadband in your area.
• Which ISP you choose. See which ISPs offer fast broadband.
• Test the speed of your current connection on our broadband speed test. This will give you a base-line against which to compare other broadband packages.

In addition to speed, you should consider:

• Cost per month. Click here to find cheap broadband.
• Contract length. Do you fear committment? Click here to find short contract broadband.
• Download allowance- heavy user? Consider the following heavy-use broadband packages.
• Bundling options. Want more than just broadband? Click here for the best broadband bundles.
• Broadband on the move. Do you want to access the internet on your laptop while on the move? Click here for mobile broadband packages.
• Reliability issues. When it comes to assessing the reliability of broadband providers, personal reccommendations are always worth listening to - speak to your family and friends.

As far as advice goes from Top 10 Broadband, we try and give a balanced overview of the broadband market rather than pushing people down a particular route. However, on our broadband company pages (click on the relevant logos on our homepage), you can read customer feedback in our review areas and we also display recent awards for each relevant broadband provider.

Overall we believe that all of the major broadband providers now give a good broadband service, there are no obvious providers to avoid in our opinion. Your choice will come down to what you can afford, the type of broadband you want and the suitability of the deal available.

Use this site to compare broadband packages.