Greenbee

Speed up to 8Mb explained

Broadband speeds

When it comes to choosing a broadband package, one of the big selling points is often speed. It's important to understand which broadband speed will be right for you before purchasing.

Bandwidth and broadband speed both refer to how much digital information can be received over the line.
The higher the speed or bandwidth, the faster the internet connection.

This speed is measured in both kilobits per second (Kbps) and megabits per second (Mbps). It is important that you don't confuse these with gigabytes which is a measurement that refers to hard drive space rather than broadband speed.

With Greenbee Broadband we'll give you the fastest speed that your phone line will reliably support up to 8 Megabits per second (Mb). The majority of people on products that advertise 'speeds up to 8Mb' will achieve a stable speed less than 8Mb. The actual connection speed that you get will depend on the quality of your phone line and the length of the line between your home and the local phone exchange. For customers across the UK who are with Internet Service Providers who offers speeds up to 8Mb the speed breakdown is as follows:

40% of customers will get a connection speed that is above 6Mb
35% get between 4Mb and 6Mb
15% get between 2Mb and 4Mb
10% get a connection speed of up to 2Mb

During the sign-up process, we can test your phone line and give you an indication of the likely download speed that it will support.

Ofcom's Broadband Speeds Voluntary Code of Practice

As part of our commitment to making sure that Greenbee Broadband is simple to use and understand, we've signed up to Ofcom's Voluntary Code of Practice for Broadband Speeds. This means that we'll always try to give you an estimated broadband speed before you order, plus you'll be able to check your actual speed at any time after that.

Your first 7 days of service

Once your broadband is activated, BT will run some tests on your phone line. These find out the lowest broadband speed you've received in the last 7 days. From this, BT can work out what speed your phone line can support.

You'll probably see your speeds go up and down whilst this happens. You might even get disconnected now-and-again if your phone line can't handle the speed. Don't worry, this is completely normal and part of the testing period. After the tests are complete your speed will still go up and down from time-to-time. However, this should be less noticeable than during the first 7 days of your service.

Download speeds

Although the connection speed will be set during the 7-day testing period, the actual speed at which you can download will vary. This is due to a number of factors. Your speed may be limited by the capacity of the server that you're downloading from or general congestion across the Internet. You may notice that the speed at which you can download is less than your connection speed if your phone exchange is busy or has a lot of heavy broadband users connected to it.