I’m often asked by friends, colleagues and acquaintances which Internet Service Provider (ISP) they should choose.

There are of course many choices and apparently some very good deals on price, particularly if you are prepared to change all of your services to a company that offers (for instance) Telephone, TV and Internet.

However, there is a choice you can make before you get to the stage of comparing deals, speeds etc. and it could save you the confusion of comparing all those packages.

The choice is: Cable Broadband or ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line).

If you do an Internet Search for “cable vs adsl” you will see lots of webpages which describe the different technologies.

Without going into technical details here, personally I prefer Cable Broadband; in my opinion it is a better system. Of course, as with everything, there are some people whose experience with Cable is not the best! In practise you may not get the “advertised” speed of an ADSL or Cable Broadband connection, however I think you are more likely to actually get the speed quoted for a Cable Broadband connection – at least that has been my experience.

If you decide you would like Cable Broadband, then unfortunately(?) that restricts you to only one provider in the England & Wales: Virgin Media. They offer Internet, TV, Telephone and Mobile in various packages. I have just found that there is an alternative in Scotland: www.smallworldmedia.com.

However, there is a possible problem. Cable isn’t available in all areas (check here), so you may only be able to get ADSL. If that’s the case then Virgin Media also do ADSL but I don’t have a specific recommendation about which company to go with. You need to compare deals and check whether you would still be getting a bill from BT for your line rental, or whether the company you pick also include line rental in the bills they send you.