What does broadband cost these days?

Like all of you, KitGuru inboxes get hammered with a spread of promotions at a constant level. Once in a while, we cast our eye on something that actually gets you thinking. This morning's thought is broadband related. KitGuru shines a torch on the dark fibres.

Possibly one of the greatest dividers for modern society is one where you do or don't know what a dial-up connection sounds like. Flashback to the film Wargames and a world of geeks looked at how easily Matthew Broderick hooked his computer into a 1200 baud connection with envy [Baud? Look it up – Ed]. Computers just weren't connected. Then the 56k Fax/Modem arrived and we all amassed huge bills at one penny a minute. [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0′]

From the initial broadband offers (BT's Alcatel green ‘frog' ADSL offering 512kb/sec etc), we have seen two huge leaps: First at the high end, where previously undreamed of speeds are happening in the fibre-sphere and, second, in the area of mass-market availability/affordability. The idea of ‘everyone' having access to broadband, no matter where you are or what your budget is.

One thing that will help here is the move to 4G by the mobile phone networks. We all have phones anyway, so if you could tether your PC/laptop/iPad to a mobile device which is offering unlimited access that can be measured in ‘tens of megabits a second' – that could be cool.

How fast might that be?   Well, in a recent BBC report, the Beeb Boffins were getting around 10Mb/sec on Vodafone's feeble network, while Everything Everywhere peaked at just over 60Mb/sec. If that was stable and available, it's certainly fast enough for most applications.

So what peaked our interest this morning?

Well, we're not going to get into the whole ‘recommend a telco' game – every network has its own horror stories – but getting 6Mb/sec broadband with your phone line, unlimited landline calls at the weekend and in the evening for less than £20 a month seems pretty good.  We know it says £3.75 – but there are many things to add in order to get a ‘real price'. That said, it does include a £75 high street voucher for all that high street shopping you do. You know. Outside. Remember outside?

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KitGuru says: We would like to hear from anyone out there who doesn't have broadband, but we guess that's as useful an invitation as asking people in a remote village to call in – when they don't have phones. If you do get a second, please vote in our latest poll (over on the right), we would love to get a feel for your fibre.

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