Broadband in Birmingham
Broadband in Birmingham is in great shape. It was already great, but recent improvements have ensured the UK’s second city is able to harness the full power of the digital age.
Broadband availability
Birmingham broadband availability is incredibly high. In fact, few regions of the UK enjoy such excellent coverage in terms of fibre optic broadband, including excellent Full Fibre availability, and mobile broadband. Again, this is down in no small part to the million+ people that call the Second City home, plus the hundreds of thousands who regularly work in Birmingham, or visit it recreationally.
Fibre optic broadband has received some big upgrades in the city over the last two to three years, after significant investment by Openreach. Full Fibre has been installed throughout Birmingham. In fact, over 93% of Birmingham residents now have access to Ultrafast Broadband, offering speeds up to 900Mbps. This is just for the companies which use Openreach’s network (basically, all of them except Virgin Media). But Virgin Media haven’t been napping either and can provide speeds of around 1Gbps throughout much of the city. Mobile broadband availability is also excellent due to the sheer number of transmitters within the Birmingham area. Traditional fixed line broadband is also very widely available thanks to an extensive phone network and the unbundled status of many of Birmingham's local telephone exchanges.
Broadband providers
With regard to broadband providers in Birmingham, you may well find yourself spoiled for choice. As with most major urban areas of the UK there’s a very wide selection of Birmingham broadband providers for you to choose from. These providers include, but are not limited to, BT, Sky, Virgin Media, TalkTalk and Plusnet. These providers and several others are each able to offer their broadband services to the residents of Birmingham.
BT Broadband
BT is able to provide many of its most popular broadband packages including Fibre 1 up to 50Mbps and Fibre 2 up to 67Mbps across huge swathes of Birmingham and the wider West Midlands. In addition, Openreach (the fibre network BT uses to carry its broadband service) has rolled out Full Fibre in most of Birmingham. These packages include speeds ranging from 100Mbps to 900Mbps.
Sky Broadband
Another provider with excellent broadband availability in Birmingham is Sky. The TV and broadband provider offers three fibre package options across much of the city and surrounding area, with speeds of either 57Mbps, 145Mbps or 900Mbps, depending on which package you opt for. You can choose to bundle Sky TV with any Sky broadband package and a call plan.
Virgin Media Broadband
Virgin Media’s fibre optic network is quite extensive in Birmingham and the surrounding area. This means that many thousands of Birmingham residents have their choice of the cable operator’s full range of services including cable TV, home phone and broadband. In many areas of Birmingham, Virgin can provide up to 100, 200, 300 and 500Mbps fibre optic broadband as well as its flagship 1Gbps fibre service known as Gig1. All Virgin Media fibre optic broadband packages include an unlimited monthly download allowance.
Fibre broadband rollout
Fibre broadband in Birmingham is very widespread for a number of reasons, including the high population density and the high number of national and international businesses that operate out of Birmingham. As such Birmingham has long been at the forefront of new communications technologies, including fibre optic broadband. In the last couple of years, Openreach has bought Ultrafast, Fibre To The Property (FTTP) broadband to most of the city, boosting the highest available speeds to 900Mbps and providing an alternative to the already widely available Virgin Media service. Virgin Media is still marginally faster however.
Best broadband
As there is so much choice in regards to broadband in Birmingham it’s impossible to single out any one provider or package as offering the best broadband in Birmingham. Different internet users have different needs in terms of download speed. In short, whatever you do online, however much data you download, and whatever you need from your Birmingham broadband package, you can be sure that you’ll have a range of providers and packages to choose from.
Areas with high availability
There is no need to single out specific areas of high availability, since the entire Birmingham area has fantastic access to both fibre and Full Fibre broadband. Over 93% of Birmingham residents can get Ultrafast connections up to 900Mbps, with a choice of packages from various providers. The city is also well served when it comes to regular fibre broadband, which is available to 98% of the population and offers speeds starting at around 35Mbps and going up to around 70Mbps. Standard broadband is available to everybody, though it is not always advertised by every provider. It is also not necessarily cheaper than fibre any more. A download speed of around 11Mbps can be expected from this type of package.