Several months back my parents had their Virgin Media line upgraded from a 2Mbps to a 10Mbps connection free of charge, due to the discontinuation of the older package. This week my father mentioned that he hadn't noticed a difference and so I performed a quick speed check which confirmed he was still on the old package; an issue resolved by a single phone call to Virgin.

I had a similar issue when Virgin upgraded me to 20Mbps without replacing my old, slow modem; once again a quick speed test provided me with the fodder to give them a call and get a new, faster broadband modem free of charge.

It is important to check that you are receiving similar to what you're paying for and you can do this by visiting www.speedtest.net. Once here click 'begin test' and within seconds you will be presented with the speed you can currently download and upload between your computer and the closest server wherever that may be.

Please remember that the speed quoted by your ISP is most often a maximum obtainable speed and it would be completely reasonable to get something less. This is especially true if you connect using ADSL via a convention phone line rather than via a fibre optic (Virgin Media) connection as the speed is heavily influenced from your distance to the closest exchange.

Even though this cannot be helped, there are many other avenues to explore if your actual speed is substantially less than that promised by your provider:

- Talk to them - In many instances your ISP will be able to run tests to ensure that your poor performance isn't due to a fault such as excessive line noise. I've seen customers have their connections increased in speed exponentially by simply reporting a fault and having an inherent problem removed; this work is paid for by the phone provider. Even in a worst case scenario where the line speed cannot be increased, it is possible that you could get moved down to a cheaper package while suffering no loss in performance.

- Update your router firmware - Most of us nowadays will connect to the Internet via a router which, if not doing its job properly, will result in slower download speeds. Problems with a router can in many instances be rectified by updating it with the latest software via a free firmware update provided by the original manufacturer. These updates are usually distributed free of charge online and serve as a way of the manufacturers improving the features, security and speed of their existing products as and when improvements are discovered.

- Clean up your PC - Many cases of connection slowdown are caused by a needlessly large amount of software in the background either slowing down the computer itself or hogging a proportion of the Internet bandwidth. Ensure that your Operating System is always kept clean and most importantly ensure that peer to peer file sharing programs (such as BitTorrent) aren't set to run in the background as these will certainly slow your connection.

The BT iPlate can be used by broadband customers who have more than one telephone sockets in the house. The iPlate has a small plate which is installed in to the master socket and attempts to reduce interference in the extension wiring in the home.

It works by cutting out the 'bell wire' cable on your line; originally this would have been used by older telephones to allow a physical bell to ring however modern day handsets have a ring feature built in and, as such, it is now redundant. Ideally, (but somewhat impractically) the bell wire would be removed from your home by a BT engineer as it now only serves as a conduit for line interference.

By using the iPlate the bell wire is choked, therefore potentially improving the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of your connection which in turn should have a knock-on effect on the line speed.

The iPlate is only suitable for customers who have the most common BT NTE5 style master socket; these consist of a split face plate with a single phone connection. The bottom section can be unscrewed independently from the top of the socket which should have the BT logo embossed on it.

Please note that the iPlate is not suitable for master sockets which have the BT OpenReach logo, which have two phone connections or those that don't have a split in the faceplate. Also, ensure that you are examining the master socket and not one of the extension sockets.

Installation is simple; Simply unscrew and remove the lower section of the master socket, pop the iPlate in its place, and then reinstall the lower section over the top of the iPlate. From start to finish this process will take no more than a couple of minutes.

Before installation I would recommend performing a speed test using a website such as www.speedtest.net as this will allow you to gauge whether or not there has been any marked improvement. Leave a couple of days before testing the line post installation as it can take up to 72 hours for the exchange to acknowledge that your potential speed is faster. This limiting factor is referred to as a 'bRAS profile' and is designed to stop traffic bottle necking at the exchange as a result of it attempting to transmit data faster than your line can physically handle.

Fortunately our home doesn't have a bell-wire or any extensions as we ripped out the old line when we bought the house and a single socket was then installed in a different location with none of the redundant bell wire reconnected. As such, I have been unable to test it personally but the general independent consensus is that although it doesn't make a difference in all home installations, there is the potential for many users to make quite considerable speed gains with 1.5mbps increases proving relatively common.

As I said, the theory is sound and for £6.63 including delivery (www.shop.bt.com) or free if you're a BT Total Broadband customer (visit www.bt.com to order), the iPlate has got to be worth a punt. Of course, if your wiring isn't a factor that is influencing your line speed and you achieve nothing then simply pass the device on to a friend.

Starting off with Vista; If you have this Operating System you would be advised to download the Service Pack from www.microsoft.com or via Windows Update as along with fixing hundreds of little bugs and glitches it also adds a number of new features. Most notable changes include support for Via Technologies new Nano 64-Bit CPU, support for Bluetooth 2.1, BluRay writing directly from the OS and better performance for WiFi connections.

This update is 348mb in size meaning that you would really need to be on a broadband connection to consider the download; this leads me neatly on to my next point.

I was contacted this week by a reader who was still using a dial up connection. I had thought that this group of die-hard dial-ip users had disbanded and joined the rest of us in the 21st century, but it would appear that I was mistaken. Try as I might, I cannot rationalise in my own head why someone would still be using dial-up; It's temperamental, slow, means you can't use your phone line, and if you need to use it regularly it can work out very expensive.

In order to reach out to these users (and indeed anyone currently on an overpriced broadband package) I thought it prudent to overview the cheapest broadband packages on the market; these are a perfect stepping stone from dial. The following recommendations are suited primarily to light Internet users and as such I would not recommend them for intensive use such as gaming or heavy downloading.

Sky TV - Sky TV customers can get free 2Mbps Broadband with a 2GB usage limit when they also subscribe to Sky Talk (the most basic of which is free) for the phone calls. Of course you still have to pay your line rental to BT, as you would with dial up. Whilst 2GB isn't a very bandwidth limit, it will be pleanty for most home users and is much more than what could be downloaded in a month using dial-up.

Talk Talk - Talk Talk is £6.49 a month in addition to your usual line rental and includes 8GB Broadband, a 40GB usage limit, free local calls and free national weekend and evening calls. The company has had a fair amount of bad press over the last couple of years mainly due to its unprecedented growth since its incorporation in 2003 but things seemed to have improved of late. If the planned merger with Tiscali goes ahead, TalkTalk will become the largest broadband provider to home users in the UK.

Tiscali - For £14.99 a month including your monthly line rental you can get up to 8GB broadband and unlimited free weekend calls. As BT would usually charge you around £12 for your line rental you are basically getting a reasonable broadband package for less than ١ a month.

PlusNet - If you don't fancy the idea of having your telephone calls handled by your broadband provider, the PlusNet Value package at £5.99 a month is an extremely competitive standalone package. With speeds up to 8Mbps, a 10GB daily download limit and an unlimited evening download limit the PlusNet deal is also surprisingly fully featured.

Before committing to a broadband package it might be an idea to first check out www.moneysupermarket.com to compare a number of other deals on the market. Most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) don't levy a set of charge all of them will provide the equipment you require and many of them will even chuck in a free wireless router; There is no real reason to stay on dial-up.

It is undeniable that Broadband take-up in the UK has been huge; the majority of the public now access the Internet via a broadband connection rather than a conventional dial up modem. A few weeks back I talked about broadband packages which made Internet access either free or incredibly cheap meaning that even occasional Internet users would be financially better off with a broadband connection.

Although the prices have been tumbling, a ceiling limit on the speeds obtainable has been reached and this needs to be broken through; although 8Mbps is a comfortable speed which will suit the majority of users we are lagging well behind many other parts of the world. A limited number of users in built up areas in Japan for example are currently able to receive blisteringly fast 1000Mbps speeds.

The UK broadband provider for choice for many is Virgin Media as far as connection speeds are concerned. They have been able to offer 20Mbps for many years and an addition have recently launched 50Mbps across the United Kingdom. Obviously the difference as far as speed between standard ADSL through your phone and Virgins offering is huge!

This speed difference is largely because of the type of cable used for carrying signal. Virgin media currently use a comparatively new and fibre optic system ' as a result you have to live in a Virgin (or as it was known Telewest and NTL) cabled area to receive this service. Normal broadband services use traditional phone lines that rely on older copper cables. As these cables were originally designed only for carrying voice there is a limit to the speed information can be sent along them.

Whilst most Internet users will be perfectly happy with 50MB per second, Virgin is currently running a trial for lucky surfers in Kent of 200MB broadband. If this was to be launched across the country it would give UK Virgin customers one of the speediest broadband packages worldwide.

Unfortunately only 12.6 million homes are in a Virgin Media cabled area which is why many have to ADSL broadband though their conventional phone line. In order to increase the speeds available to these users BT is currently upgrading exchanges across the UK to ADSL 2+ which will offer up to 20Mbps. Although Torbay hasn't yet been switched over the exchanges should be upgraded by summer of next year which will result in an approximate doubling of speed at, most likely, no extra cost.

After the ADSL 2+ rollout it would be fair to say that we would have pretty much reached the theoretical maximum speed that you can transfer data down a copper cable. In order to overcome this, BT has began rolling out its own fibre optic broadband across the country however current plans will seen only 40% of UK households covered by 2012 and it is unlikely that they will cover Torbay in this initial phase.

Presently, your best bet for the fastest possible broadband in areas like South Devon would be to check if you are in a broadband cabled area at www.virginmedia.com. If you are not covered it would be best to suffer/sit back and wait for the arrival of ADSL 2+ or the rollout of fibre optic technology across the UK.