Understand the technology behind your broadband and TV

"Fibre" in UK marketing usually means FTTC (fibre to the cabinet): fibre to a green roadside box, then copper into your house. Maxes out around 80 Mbps and is sensitive to how far you live from the cabinet. Full-fibre (FTTP) is fibre all the way into your home. No copper bottleneck, 100 Mbps to multi-gig, much more stable. Always check which one you are actually buying. Detail in our fibre vs cable guide.

Virgin runs its own DOCSIS cable network, with up to 2 Gb/s download. On raw download throughput it wins where it is available. The catch is asymmetric upload: Virgin's download is fast, upload lags well behind. Openreach full-fibre is closer to symmetric, which makes a real difference for video calls, cloud backup and Twitch streaming. For pure file downloads, Virgin still wins.

25 Mbps per 4K stream is the Netflix and Disney+ floor. A four-person household on 4K, gaming and Zoom calls wants at least 75-100 Mbps to feel comfortable. 500 Mbps+ matters only if multiple users download large files or stream to Twitch. Gigabit is mostly future-proofing in the home today. Our broadband speed test guide covers how to measure honestly.

For casual online play, anything under 50 ms is fine. For ranked or competitive shooters, you want under 25 ms ping and under 5 ms jitter. Full-fibre with a wired connection typically lands at 5-15 ms. Wi-Fi adds 5-20 ms. Mobile broadband adds 30 ms+. Detail and how to test in our download, upload and ping guide.

Not on full-fibre or Virgin Media cable. Both are delivered without an old copper phone line. FTTC plans still technically run over the copper line but most providers now bundle the line rental into the headline price. The PSTN switch-off in January 2027 ends the copper phone line everywhere, replaced by VoIP. Full picture in our broadband without a phone line guide.

Sometimes, often not. Cheap repeaters halve bandwidth at each hop and can make things worse in busy networks. Mesh kits (Eero, TP-Link Deco, Google Wifi, BT Whole Home, Sky Wifi Max) almost always beat a single extender. Run a wired speed test next to the router first, to confirm the line itself is delivering the speed. Our Wi-Fi extender guide covers when each option makes sense.

VoIP (Voice over IP) carries voice calls over your broadband connection instead of a separate copper line. Cheaper to run, supports HD voice and integrates with apps. Every UK provider must offer a VoIP equivalent before the PSTN switch-off in January 2027. Power-cut behaviour is the one trade-off: a copper landline used to keep working in a power cut, VoIP does not unless the router has a battery backup. Detail in our VoIP guide.

Openreach is the BT-owned network arm that built and maintains most of the UK's physical broadband network. Every major UK provider except Virgin Media and the alt-nets (CityFibre, Hyperoptic, Community Fibre, YouFibre) rents the line from Openreach. That is why BT, Sky, EE, TalkTalk, Plusnet, NOW, Vodafone and Zen often have similar coverage and similar fault windows: they share the same physical line. Full explainer in our Openreach guide.