Lots of companies offer ADSL broadband, like BT, TalkTalk, AOL, Tiscali, Orange and Sky. Virgin Media also do ADSL. However, Virgin Media is the only company that offers cable broadband in the UK.

The maximum speed you can get with ADSL broadband may be less than you think you should be getting, because it's based on how far you live from the telephone exchange.

Cable broadband comes down its own cable so doesn't get the same problem.

Other things can affect the speed like the number of people using a website at the same time and the performance of your computer, although this isn't usually a problem. That's why broadband companies say'up to' before the speed, for example 'up to 8Mb'

If you can get cable broadband, you really should, here's why:

1. Cable broadband is faster

Cable is designed for the digital age. It carries information as light which is very efficient and means loads of stuff can travel vast distances down it and arrive in good shape.

Top speed cable broadband (up to 20Mb) is over 350 times faster than dial-up (up to 56K) and nearly 3 times faster than the top speed ADSL broadband currently sold by the likes of BT, Talk Talk and Tiscali (up to 8Mb).

Up to 20Mb broadband from Virgin Media is the fastest broadband that's widely available.

The faster broadband gets, the more you can do with it. Which is why cable speeds of up to 50Mb are being tested right now. That's nearly 900 times faster than dial-up.

Unlike cable, ADSL comes down phone lines. It uses copper wire 'technology' that was designed for making phone calls which means broadband speeds get slower the further you live from the telephone exchange

Why does ADSL slow down the further you are from the telephone exchange?

Imagine you're having a conversation with someone who's walking away from you down a busy street. After a while you'd struggle to hear them, right? Same with ADSL broadband:

All sorts of things get in the way of the signal as it travels down the wire (like stray electricity from other wires). Bit by bit, less and less makes it through until, eventually, if the wire was long enough, you'd be left with nothing at all. All the stuff that chips away at your signal is called 'noise'.

Why doesn't cable broadband slow down over distance

The cable that broadband comes down is designed to carry loads of information very quickly. It's so advanced it can carry masses of things into your home, like your phone and digital TV.

And with cable you're able to get pretty much the top speed available (that's up to 20Mb). That's because it's so well made, a lot of the stuff that weakens signals down phone lines ('noise' and 'attenuation', they call it) doesn't make much difference to cable.

Something called contention also affects the speed. What is contention?

The best way to explain contention is to imagine your connection to the internet is a motorway. Sometimes it's quiet and you can zip along. Sometimes it's packed with other cars and everything grinds to a halt.

Sooner or later your connection to the internet will join other people's, like an 'A road' joining the motorway. Loads of people clogging it up at the same time will slow things down.

With ADSL, your 'A road' joins the motorway from the telephone exchange onwards, so you're either sharing your connection with 19 or 49 other people. That's a lot of sharing going on and that's going to slow you down.

With cable, you still share your connection with other people. Your cable 'A road' still joins the shared motorway, it's just the motorway's so much wider, there's room for everyone. And with cable, if there are any snarl-ups appearing, they can be spotted quickly, and more space gets freed up, keeping everyone moving. This is one of the advantages of owning your own network which most ADSL providers don't - you only have to worry about your own traffic.

See it for yourself

Have a look at the demos and you'll see just how fast cable is.

2. Cable broadband is the best performing

We think cable broadband is fantastic. We know what you're thinking 'well, they would say that. They sell it'. True. So we set about trying to prove it beyond all question. Using data provided by Epitiro (a company that independently tests all the major internet companies to see how good they really are) we tested ourselves against the competition in all the areas that really matter.

The tests covered things like upload and downloads speeds. We weren't surprised to find we came top in most of the tests - so when we say we are the UK's best performing broadband provider, we can prove it. Find out why cable is the UK's best performing broadband.

3. Cable broadband is the most awarded

Awards for Virgin Broadband (formerly ntl and Telewest).

2007 Best Consumer ISP

Awarded at The ISPAs - the UK Internet Industry Awards

One of the toughest and most independent awards you can win.

To win we were tested on loads of stuff like how quickly it takes to connect, how often a connection fails, upload and download speeds, etc.

Other things that helped us come top were our prices and how quickly we could install. Want to know more? It's all here.

We've won loads of other awards. There's more here if you want to see them.

4. Virgin Broadband is the most popular choice

More people choose Virgin Media for their home broadband, than anyone else. That makes Virgin Media the UK's number one home broadband provider.

Find out more about Virgin Media cable broadband