ADSL broadband is delivered through your phone line to your business, the journey starts at your local telephone exchange. Find out more about each stage of the journey, and how it affects your broadband speed?
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Business Broadband
Check the broadband speed you can get with BT Business Broadband
What is broadband speed?
Broadband speed is the rate at which information is sent (the upload speed) and received (the download speed) on your business broadband line. It's measured in megabits per second.
Broadband usage refers to the volume of information you are allowed to use over your broadband connection each month. Usage is measured in 'GB' (gigabytes).
Checking your broadband speed
To check the broadband speed you can get with BT Business Broadband enter your phone number in the speed checker further down this page. If you don't have a phone line, enter your postcode.
If you already have BT business broadband or BT Infinity and want to check your line rate or throughput speed, use our online speed checker. For full instructions on how to use the broadband speed checker and interpret the results download our Online speed checker instruction guide
Different types of broadband
Broadband through your phone line
This is the most widely available type of broadband. It's also known as ADSL or ADSL2+. It's delivered to your home through your BT phone line from your local telephone exchange.
Super-fast fibre optic broadband
Fibre broadband is the fastest broadband available and is delivered through a fibre optic cable.
Read more about BT Infinity - fibre optic broadband for business
How broadband gets to your business
See how ADSL broadband gets from the telephone exchange to you business
1. Your local telephone exchange
The main factor affecting your broadband speed is the distance from the telephone exchange to your business. Generally speaking, the closer you are to the telephone exchange, the higher the broadband speed your phone line can support. There are other things that can affect the broadband speed you receive, but this is by far the most important factor.
This is true of every ADSL broadband provider, as they all provide broadband to your business from a local telephone exchange.
2. Once broadband leaves the exchange
The broadband speed can be affected by the number of other people using the network at the same time, so it's important you test your broadband speed at different times of the day to see how other usage could affect your speed. At peak times, when more people use their broadband connections, there may be congestion in broadband traffic which can lower your broadband speed.
3. Local cabinet
A cabinet is a small, usually green, box you can see on street corners throughout the country. These are all maintained by BT along with telephone exchanges, and are another connection point for phone lines between the local telephone exchange and your business, but on a more local level.
4. The cabinet to your business
The final stage of the broadband journey is from the cabinet to your business. While this distance isn't as critical to your broadband speed as the overall distance from the telephone exchange to your business, it still has an effect on your speed.