In Northern Ireland over 80% of the population has access to the internet, with 9 in 10 people having an internet connection in the home.
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Background
Northern Ireland is one of the best connected regions in Europe and has the highest availability of fibre broadband in the UK, with 95% of premises able to access fibre enabled cabinets in June 2013. In 2015 BT rolled out the first fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband connections in the UK, offering download speeds of 330Mbit/s. Currently residents of Northern Ireland have a choice of 27 broadband service providers.
BT
As well as being the largest provider of landlines, BT are also currently the largest internet service provider in Northern Ireland.
As of 2009 BT started rolling out Fibre Optic broadband in certain locations within the United Kingdom and Belfast was chosen as one of the trial areas.
BT Infinity first became available in the Balmoral area of South Belfast in spring 2010, now it is currently available in other areas of the city including West and South Belfast, and in many other parts of Northern Ireland.
Virgin Media
Virgin cable services are only available in Belfast and other places in the Greater Belfast area. They currently offer TV, Broadband and Telephone services, and are currently the second largest company in Northern Ireland providing telephone and broadband services.
Virgin currently offers the fastest broadband speeds in Belfast and surrounding areas, with some areas able to avail of connection speeds of up to 152Mbit/s down their own fibre optic cables.
If customers are not in a fibre optic area they can take up Virgin's ADSL broadband which offers speeds of around 20Mbit/s almost every area in Northern Ireland are able to get this service as it uses the telephone lines rented of BT to provide the service.