How to watch Ukraine - England live online

The news that coverage of the Ukraine - England World Cup qualifier will only be available on the web has provoked strong reactions from football fans.

However, as the dust settles on the row over TV rights to England games, the serious business of actually supporting the national team needs to be taken care of. So here's Web User's guide to watching the action.

How do I get access to the match?
There are a variety of options - you can stream it directly from the Perform website, but many other sites will also be providing the coverage. Orange, the Daily Mail, The Sun and the Daily Telegraph are just some of the sites taking part.  

How much will it cost me?
If you move fast and sign up before midnight on Wednesday it'll be £4.99. After that, the price shoots up to £9.99 and should you only make a spur-of-the-minute decision on the day itself you'll be stung for £11.99. However, you may find that you can't sign up on Saturday anyway, as Perform is restricting the number of streams to one million.

An alternative being offered by Bet365.com is to see the game for free, as long as you set up an account and place a £10 bet on the site. Though this means the coverage isn't actually free, you at least have an outside chance of getting your money back.

Can't I just go and watch it in the pub?
No. Though this is something that thousands if not millions of people used to do when Setanta had coverage of England internationals, there will be no coverage in your local. However, some Odeon cinemas around the country will be showing it, tickets costing £5 for kids and £8 for adults. Some family packages are available.

What do I need to watch it at home?
You'll need an internet connection, obviously, and though there will be a choice of 256Kbps, 512Kbps and 1Mbps streams, you will require a 2Mbps package minimum for a decent experience. If you use a wireless network, consider using an Ethernet cable to connect your laptop or PC to the router rather than relying on Wi-Fi - this should provide a more stable connection.

How much bandwidth will I use?
The highest-quality stream will use around 1GB of data, so if your broadband contract has a set monthly allowance, you'll need to be careful. The lowest-quality stream will take up roughly 250MB.

Won't the number of people logging on slow the network down?
This is what many industry insiders fear - the UK's broadband network isn't designed to deal with a million people all streaming live video at once. There are many factors at play but ISPs could find their networks take a hammering and slow down significantly. Also, if your broadband service has a high contention ratio (where many customers effectively share bandwidth) and there are several people all trying to access the coverage, you may have a very bad time of it.

What's worse is that Perform will only provide refunds if the coverage is inaccessible because of a fault that it is directly responsible for - if the ISPs can't cope with traffic levels, you'll be left frustrated and out of pocket.

Will I at least be able to see highlights on TV?
The answer to this question is still unclear - ITV apparently had a "six-figure sum bid" for a highlights package rejected, according to the Daily Telegraph. The article also mentions that the FA's executive director is to report to the government on so-called 'listed events' which should be reserved for free-to-air coverage. If you think that England World Cup qualifying matches should figure on this list, then we'd suggest writing to your MP.

Follow footballers on Twitter to see what they think of the online-only coverage of Ukraine - England.