Actual broadband speeds less than half the advertised speed
13th May 2009
The actual broadband speeds UK broadband users receive is less than half of the advertised Up To speed provided by broadband providers
The average broadband speed that those of us in the UK receive is less than half of the advertised "up to" speed from broadband providers.
The broadband comparison website "Broadband Genie" found that on average we receive just 45.8% of the advertised "up to" broadband speed.
The broadband providers who topped the chart were Virgin Media and Talk Talk, although this was caused because customers who had thought they were on 1Mb or 2Mb broadband speed deals were actually receiving much better connections. Virgin Media customers who had thought they were receiving a 1Mb connection on average were receiving 2.9Mb which works out at just under 3 times faster!
Virgin broadband deals has seen free broadband speed increase for customers in recent time, in 2007 those on 10Mb broadband were boosted up to 20Mb, last year those on 4Mb were upgrade to 10Mb and this year those on 2Mb will receive an upgrade to 10Mb which are big increases on what customers originally subscribed too.
The big losers in the advertised to actual speeds customers receive were from BT broadband, AOL broadband and Orange broadband which each of them providing on average just 33% of the advertised speed.
This difference in actual speed to advertised speed can cause great confusion to customers who are expecting much greater speeds without realising that the broadband speed they receive is largely affected by the distance they are form the telephone exchange, the further away they are the slower the broadband speed tends to be. Anyone can test their broadband speed by using a broadband speed test.
Hopefully though as fibre broadband becomes more popular through BT starting to roll this out, or through the advances that Virgin broadband are doing with their already established cable network, such as trialling 200Mb fibre broadband the speed issues will become less of a problem. We just need to hope that when we do get next generation broadband our actual broadband speeds will match the advertised broadband speeds much better.
Virgin broadband deals has seen free broadband speed increase for customers in recent time, in 2007 those on 10Mb broadband were boosted up to 20Mb, last year those on 4Mb were upgrade to 10Mb and this year those on 2Mb will receive an upgrade to 10Mb which are big increases on what customers originally subscribed too.
