The average mobile broadband speed that UK mobile broadband users receive is just under 1Mb according to research done by Epitiro, the broadband communications authority.
The research found that users received on average just 24% of the advertised download speeds and web browsing is 34% slower than standard fixed line broadband.
The test results were collected from December 2008 to May 2009 from 1300 random mobile broadband users downloading Epitiro’s broadband monitoring software and creating over 1.4 million test results.
The whole range of online activities were monitored through the software including web surfing, downloading music and movies, VoIP telephone calling, Internet gaming and watching streaming video.
Online gaming didn’t fair well, with the average ping time on mobile broadband being 150 msec which is higher than the recommended 100 msec required for online gaming and much higher than the 50 msec that standard fixed line broadband offers.
1.8Mb broadband speeds were achieved on weekdays at 3 am, with the broadband speeds doubling to this speed from the average recorded it could be that contention could well be a big factor that is slowing the mobile broadband speeds down in the day time.
This is something that the mobile industry is going to have to look at if they are serious about mobile broadband being able to cover the remote places that fixed line broadband can’t reach for delivering the minimum 2Mb broadband that is going to be required as part of the Digital Britain report.
Users can test their broadband speed with a broadband speed test.