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Hmmm just had a thought, well actually had it in the past, but thought I would see what opinions people have on here; if and when you move house, how big a factor will the availability of broadband be in you're decision about where to move?

Ie. You can get Broadband via xDSL just about everywhere nowadays, even in the remotest regions of the Scottish Highlands, even the Fair Isle (with a total of just 30 houses on the island) has 512Kbps/256Kbps ADSL via the somewhat helpful BT "Activate" product. This means of course BT is the only ISP you can have, but its better than nothing right?

Now as we know, in most area's, you can have a choice of just about any ISP within reason, which means increased competition, more choice and better pricing, in most urban area's nowadays, you can even have a choice of multiple LLU providers such as Sky, o2 and TalkTalk etc, which means being able to recieve mega-deals like 8Mbps for £5 a month.

Now personally, I love my location, I have only ever paid for 8Mbps services and consistently get in excess of 8Mbps. I am now strongly attatched to my o2 upload speed of 1.3Mbps, which practically no other ISP can offer. To me, 1.3Mbps makes using the internet so much better, its now a two way thing and I would rather have 2-4Mbps and 1Mbps up than the usual 8Mbps down and 400Kbps up as offered by other providers.

If I were to move, ideally I would be moving to an o2 Broadband LLU area to continue my service. No matter what though, I would need broadband of some description for my business, and it would have to be reliable. I would also prefer to have a bit of choice as this means you are not at the mercy of a single provider.

I would also seriously consider the distance between any new property and the exchange; I am currently 1.69Km away from the exhange, and with this seeming ideal for 8Mbps service, I wouldnt want to be any more than 2Km, possibly 2.5Km at a stretch, away from the exchange.

Of course, the broadband plays a small part in the overall decision about where I live, at the end of the day you can't really have too much force over the local services, but it would deffo have some impact.

I think unless I was moving to somewhere remote, it would be quite a major factor in my decision about where to move to.

But I use the internet a LOT, especially upstream, last month alone I uploaded 35GB, now when you consider I have recently been spending 60% of my time at my gf's on her broad-slow-band standard ADSL connection, it illustrates how much uploading I do!

Anyone got any opinions? Would it be a decent factor in you're choice of where to live? Would it even be a consideration, or would you not be bothered?

One place to avoid moving to folk is Hull.

Would Broadband Have Any Influence Over Where You Would Live? single choice
	Yes, I would carefully consider my broadband options.
	I probably wouldnt consider it too much, but id prefer to be able to stay with my ISP if possible.
	It would have a very slight influence in my decision. But only as a sidethought.
	No, just so long as I can get xDSL or even "mobile" broadband, that will do for me.
	No, none at all, if I found I was not able to get broadband, id just learn to live without it.
Votes accepted starting: 5th Jun 2008 2:01am You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

Interesting