So I had to give up my house last year due to the wonderful 'pro-woman' bias of officaldom whenever there is a marriage break-up. This is neither here nor there, but since then I have been residing somewhere that has a broadband connection so heinous this afternoon I actually had to wait 40 seconds for Spotify to load up a track that was only 2 minutes long! Ha ha! I'd cry if I hadn't had to put up with this for the past 4 months! Several reasons abound as to why the internet is so poor around here, but basically it's because our Government won't a) stump up the readies to install a decent internet infrastructure or b) won't have the balls to make someone else stump up the readies... So I am househunting again, and I kid you not, aside from the notion that I not house myself next door to a crack house, chip shop, or whorehouse (actually, I'm flexible on the last one... LOL!) the Number One priority is that I can get access to fibre optic broadband. The poor estate agent - when he asked me what I was looking for, and I said - "20meg fibre broadband, please. Show me your list of houses..." Is it just me or does anyone else SERIOUSLY consider broadband when moving home yet?
Shopping apartments, and I'm putting every address into the FiOS address checker to see if 30meg fiber is available.
just put the postcode into Virgin Media/BT Broadband checker. Should give you a minimum speed. Also, locate the nearest exchange and check the distance. Then, if all is well, check the exchanges capabilities. Simples. Anything near 8meg and above does me fine.
Awww, maaaan! There was me thinking there was a nice simple map of decent fibre optic connections... I CANNOT use copper wire - it is... abhorrent to me, and disturbing to my demeanor! I know that Virgin have a postcode checker, but it's the wrong way around really... I want to know what postcodes have fibre optics so I can search those for decent properties, not find a property, then find the post code, and then search only to find it doesn't get fibre optic broadband... I'm not too picky! LoL...
I considered it even before 8mb was common. It's the first thing I check about anywhere I consider moving.
cable internet is copper and up to 100mbit (well copper on the house end at least!) ...that being said - virgin *effin* media has been very unreliable as of late
Try Samknows exchange search too - that'll give you a list of what broadband is available from the nearest exchange. Includes fibre and LLU'd BB, which is just as good for now.
I am looking forward to university accommodation just for a broadband connection of over 1 MBit/ second! Internet is a very important factor in everything!
Rightmove.com are supposed to be rolling out a new broadband feature which will tell you who and what speed are achievable for that postcode, not sure when it's coming tho. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-03/08/rightmove-broadband
Now I've been living with 20mb unlimited fibre(courtesy of that great student ISP, Ask4) I'm not sure I could manage without.
I'm in exactly the same situation as you. Beautiful isn't it. If OP moves close enough to inner city, there should be decent broadband. FTTH is rare in the UK I thought, but FTTC is becoming more common, and copper can still do 25 in city locations can't it? E.g., I have postcode of B15 1NQ, and BT, Eclipse, and PlusNet all over 40Mb fibre connections (on moneysupermarket.com at least).
Internet was a pretty big issue when I was conidering where to move to, but it turned out that the fastest available in this town is 20Mbps, although that speed is available just about everywhere in the area. Internet speed is important, but fiber would require moving twenty miles over to the city. Not quite worth it.
