What does ADSL stand for?
Assymetric Digital Subscriber Line

What is ADSL
It's a broadband internet connection that uses existing copper-based or analogue telephone lines. It operates at speeds of between 500Kbps and 8Mbps - at least 10 times faster than traditional dial-up with a modem.

How does it work?
It works by splitting your normal voice line in two - voice is transmitted at frequencies between 0 and 20kHz and the data part is trasmitted at the much higher 25.875kHz to 1.104Mhz frequencies. It uses a "Broad Band", which is where broadband comes from. Effectively it's like one lane on a motorway for voice and a few hundred lanes for data (it would be a very wide or "broad" motorway).

Your computer connects to a router/modem either via Ethernet, which is best, or USB (not good for Macs - usb routers tend to be much cheaper). This then is connected to your telephone socket with a MicroFilter in between to separate the voice and data parts. This is how you can use the phone whilst using the internet.

From your house phone line it uses the existing copper wires to your local exchange. Along the way the high frequencies used by the data degrades as the cable length increases. This is why people close to the exchange will get better speeds than people further away (over 2km).

Once at your exchange it is then routed onto our network after authenticating first with BT. This usually takes a matter of seconds.

More answers can be found in our Frequently Asked Questions, or direct any questions to use using the contact page.