November 16, 2011
Broadband speeds across the UK drop by as much as 35% on average during the “broadband rush hour” with some towns noticing a huge 69% difference in the broadband speeds they receive between peak and off-peak hours.
 Anyone wanting to get the fastest use out of their broadband are best to do so between the hours of 2am-3am in the morning that are found to be the times when you are likely to receive your fastest broadband connection, obviously as most people are in bed asleep at this time that makes sense with the fastest UK average broadband speed at around 9.6Mb during this time.
The contrast is when the “information super highway” is at it’s rush hour between 7pm and 9pm in the evening when there are the most people using the internet at home and the average UK broadband speed drops to around 6.2Mb.
The study was done by the price comparison website uSwitch.com with the data of more than 2 million broadband speed tests analysed. Only Post Code areas that had more than 100 speed tests with included in the results and included both standard ADSL broadband connections and also fibre broadband connections.
The Technology expert at uSwitch, Ernest Doku, said:
“It really is surprising just how much broadband speeds fluctuate at different times of the day, with drop-offs of almost 70% in some areas of the UK. Not many internet users enjoy the maximum headline broadband speeds offered by providers, and certainly not during the working week.
This research may help to shed some light on why many bewildered consumers, who believe they?ve signed up to a certain broadband speed, never actually feel like their connection is fast enough. The problem of slower broadband speeds has been exacerbated by changes in the way people use the internet, with far more people downloading music and watching TV programmes online, inevitably putting more strain on the network.“
Evesham in Worcestershire was the area that topped the charts for the widest variation in broadband speeds, with the morning speed between 7-9am averaging 15.5Mb and the evening speed between 7-9pm down to just 4.9Mb.
More people streaming music and live TV online in the evening are huge factors for the slowing down of broadband connections in the evening, as faster more reliable broadband speeds have been made available there has also seen an increasing use and demand for more bandwidth hungry applications such as for the BBC iPlayer to give consumers what they want to watch on demand.
Looking to the future it is clear that the fibre broadband deployment across the UK is vital in making sure that consumers will continue to be able to use the internet at peak hours without interruption.
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October 25, 2011
The latest “State of the Internet” report by Akamai found the UK lagged back in 25th spot based on countries broadband speeds around the world.
This latest report is for the second quarter of 2011 and actually saw European countries placed well in the top 10 of average broadband speeds, as usual though it is South Korea (13.8Mb), Hong Kong (10.3Mb) and Japan (8.9Mb) who top the list.
However, coming in in 4th spot was the Netherlands (8.5Mb), then the Czech Republic (7.4Mb) followed by Switzerland (7.3Mb).
The UK averaged just over 5Mb putting it back down in 25th spot.
However, where the UK does climb the rankings is for general broadband connectivity where we rank 11th, this is due to the fact that over 91% of users connected to the internet have broadband speeds of 2Mb or greater. The leader in this category, maybe rather surprisingly, was Bulgaria with 97% followed by the Czech Republic with 95%.
Top fastest 100 cities for broadband didn’t contain 1 UK city, with the highest ranked European city being Brno in the Czech Republic which was at number 55 averaging 8.3Mb. The top 100 cities included 59 form Japan and 10 from South Korea as has tended to be the case every time these reports are released.
All is not doom and gloom for the UK though, we currently have BT rolling out their fibre broadband network across the UK which is due to reach two thirds of the country by 2015 at a cost of around £2.5bn. Virgin Media are also looking at and working on ways to increase their broadband speeds offered to customers via their cable network. So going forward we would expect the UK to start climbing the rankings and hopefully by 2015 when the uptake of fibre broadband across the country has increased the average broadband speed test results will make for far more pleasant reading.
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September 26, 2011
Broadband companies will only be allowed to advertise broadband speed claims if at least 10% of their customers can actually receive these broadband speeds according to a leaked report from the ASA.
The Independent newspaper has reportedly seen the leaked ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) report that is due to be released later this week, however PC Pro magazine have been told by an ASA spokesman that there are some inaccuracies in what the Independent have reported, but they were not able to confirm the specific points.
Along with the requirement for advertised headlined broadband speeds to match those that at least 10% of customers could actually receive are also the requirement that the speed range that 20-80% of customers could receive to also be published along with it.
Virgin Media are not impressed that the requirement is only applicable to broadband delivered by copper wire and not fibre optic cable like they use themselves which do not have the slow down in speeds really compared to that via standard copper broadband lines.
Ofcom will be pleased that some action is being taken, back in July they released figures that showed the average advertised broadband speed was 15Mb, while the actual average broadband speed achieved by customers was in fact 6.8Mb and this highlighted the great difference between advertised and actual broadband speeds and how it can be confusing for consumers.
Consumers often run a broadband speed test and find the broadband speed they are receiving is no way near to the broadband speed the thought they were signing up for.
What the leaked report apparently doesn’t go on to mention is anything about the advertising of “unlimited” broadband with fair use policies, another confusing factor that consumers face when signing up for broadband deals.
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September 22, 2011
uSwitch yesterday published what they believed are the 50 slowest broadband streets in the UK but today BT has countered this by saying that the results are based on false data.
In uSwitches report they said that the street of Mount Pleasant in the Suffolk town of Halesworth had the slowest broadband of any street in the whole country with an average broadband speed of 0.128Mb. However, BT have countered this claim by saying that their data indicates that the street has speeds of 7.5Mb and that Mount Pleasant was very close to the local telephone exchange meaning it very unlikely that it would get such slow broadband speeds, plus the street has access to fibre broadband too!
The top 2 streets for the slowest broadband on the list are both actually connected up to fibre broadband.
A BT spokesperson said:
“It appears that the data in this survey is out of date. Fibre broadband is now available for a number of the streets identified.
We wouldn’t disagree with uSwitch that there are a number of slow spots in the UK, and that needs addressing, but it would seem they haven’t managed to identify them correctly here.”
BT said that 7 of the 50 streets identified in the list have access to fibre broadband.
However, just because they have access to fibre broadband does not mean that residents on the streets are signed up to it and that the results in uSwitch’s report are based on actual broadband speed tests that are carried out by consumers. A minimum of 10 speed tests per post code had to have been done before they were considered to be included in the report.
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September 9, 2011
The average broadband speed in the UK for August was 8.06Mb with average upload speeds at 1.21Mb according to the broadband speed test results from the broadband.co.uk website.
Unsurprisingly heading the field is Virgin Media with their cable broadband network which provided and average broadband speed of over double the national average at 16.97Mb, they also showed the highest upload speeds too, again over double the national average at 2.48Mb.
Taking second place was Eclipse who posted an average broadband speed of 7.15Mb, just ahead of BT who’s average was 6.99Mb.
With Virgin Media & BT broadband both battling fiercely to sign up as many customers to their fibre broadband networks it will be pleasing for Virgin Media to see that currently their average broadband speed is almost 10Mb faster than that BT customers receive.
The speed test study looks at the largest UK broadband providers to work out what their average broadband speed test is. The following is the list of average broadband speed test results.
Virgin Media: 16.97Mb
Eclipse Internet: 7.15Mb
BT Broadband: 6.99Mb
Be & O2 Broadband*: 5.57Mb
Plusnet: 4.99Mb
TalkTalk: 4.93Mb
Sky Broadband: 4.76Mb
Orange Broadband: 3.78Mb
AOL Broadband: 3.08Mb
* Be & O2 use the same network as Be are owned by O2.
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August 22, 2011
The UK’s slowest broadband towns have been listed after broadband speed tests across the country were done by uSwitch.com
The Kent town of Cranbrook managed to set an average broadband download speed of just 1.32Mb which is around 5 times slower than the national average which is 7.5Mb.
Out of the top 20 (or should than be bottom 20) for slowest broadband speeds the counties of Kent & Sussex were home to 6 of the slowest broadband towns in the survey, with all of them having broadband speeds below 2Mb.
The results were gathered from people running broadband speeds tests and as such pr0bably mean there are other places with slower broadband, but from the 400,000 speed tests that were performed between May & July this year these were the findings.
The second slowest was Tregaron in Wales followed by Lavant which is near to Chichester.
These slow broadband speeds are on the UK governments agenda to get sorted, in Western Europe the UK has one of the slowest internet connections, way behind the average in France of 18Mb and Finland with 22Mb. The UK government want to have the fastest European broadband network by 2015, along with the £2.5bn investment in their fibre network being done by BT, the government have announced a £530m pot to help fund broadband out to rural areas and a further £300m in the future.
We can only look longingly at the average broadband speeds that South Korea and Japan offer which are 46Mb and 61Mb respectivly.
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July 28, 2011
Broadband speeds are still on the rise according to research by Ofcom. In the last 6 months they have found that the average broadband speed has increased by 10%.
In November/December the average broadband speed they found was 6.2Mb and in the latest broadband speed test results they show the average has crept up to 6.8Mb by May 2011.
The study and results also showed that along with the broadband speeds increasing the gap between the advertised broadband speed and actual broadband speeds people receive has also increased. Previously the average advertised speed back in Nov/Dec was 13.8Mb making the gap between advertised and actual 7.6Mb, howevere in May 2011 the average advertised broadband speed was 15Mb making a difference of 8.2Mb gap between advertised and actual average broadband speeds.
The study looked at 14 packages available form the 7 largest UK broadband providers who account for over 75% of UK residential broadband connections.
The Chief Executive of Ofcom, Ed Richards, said:
“The UK broadband market has transformed since Ofcom first published its research two and a half years ago.
By publishing this research, Ofcom has encouraged ISPs to invest in faster broadband networks; we are now seeing consumers increasingly move to higher rated services and enjoying genuinely faster speeds.
Consumers also have access to better broadband information, allowing them to decide which provider to use based on actual speeds they can achieve at home.
However, the research is still telling us that some consumers are not receiving anywhere near the speeds that are being advertised by some ISPs. Ofcom continues to urge the CAP and BCAP committees to make changes to their advertising guidance so that consumers are able to make more informed decisions based on the adverts they see.”
The differences between different ISPs average broadband speeds can be viewed below:
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April 27, 2011
The highest average broadband speed in the UK is available in Bradford, with the Yorkshire city being the only UK city to make it in to the top 100 cities around the world for average broadband speeds.
The results of the forth quarter results compiled by Akamai were released yesterday and it had Bradford sneaking itself into 99th place with an average broadband speed of 6.2Mb.
Of the 100 cities in the table, there was only 24 which were not in South Korea (South Korea had 16 in the top 100) or Japan (Japan had 60 int he top 100) with South Korea dominating the top of the list with the top 11 places and also having 15 of the top 20 fastest average broadband speed cities in the world.
The South Korean city of Taegu topped the list with an average broadband speed of 18.36Mb.
The director of market intelligence at Akamai, David Belson, told V3.co.uk:
“Sometimes a city can jump up if there’s an aggregation point in the area where networks meet, but that doesn’t appear to be the case in Bradford so it seems reasonable to conclude that it’s just that the broadband there is particularly good.”
He also told them that cities such as Southamption, Luton and Oldham were all not too far off the top 100 list but London was way down in around 400th position with an average broadband speed of just 3.5Mb.
Average broadband speeds in the UK are likely to continue to rise as BT rolls out it’s fibre optic broadband network (BT Infinity) across the UK and aims to cover around 66% of the UK by 2015.
In terms of the countries ranking, the UK rose one place to 26th showing that there is still plenty of room for improvement.
Users can test what speed their own broadband runs at by running a broadband speed test.
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March 10, 2011
Using WiFi to access the internet can slow your broadband speed by up to 40% according to a recent survey.
On average the broadband speed redcued by 30% when using WiFi to connect to the internet according to the results from the study that was done by Epitiro, internet analysts.
One of the big problems causing the reduced broadband speeds aside form the physical barriers that the WiFi signals need to travel through such as walls and floors is actually interference from other devices using the same channel or frequency.
Many wireless routers by default use the same communications channel which in urban areas can mean that numerous routers can be in a close proximity to each other and lead to connections dropping or slowing the service. Changing the channel of the router could help reduce this problem.
Another issue comes in the form of other electronic devices that use similar frequency range to the wireless router, this can include baby monitors, cordless phones and microwaves.
Ideally using a wired broadband connection would mean more stable, reliable and faster internet connections but many consumers are willing to take the reduced broadband speeds for the freedom and convenience that WiFi offers them.
In real terms, browsing webpages and checkign emails will not produce a great deal of speed difefrence, it is only when more bandwidth reliant applications or downloading of music or video that the speed difference is likely to be noticeable.
14,000 WiFi connections were tested for the study from November 2010 to February 2011. Users can use a free broadband speed test to check themselves if there is much of a difference between a wired and wireless internet connection at home by using our free broadband speed tester.
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March 8, 2011
Rightmove are to add the estimated broadband speeds of the 1 million homes that it has listed on it’s website.
 According to a story that was run by The Telegraph newspaper they have learnt that Rightmove and BT are teaming up so that the estimated broadband speed of a home is listed down against the basic stats of a house, such as the number of bedrooms, garden or garage.
Along with the estimated broadband speed to be listed on Rightmove they will also be listing if the property is covered or due to be covered by the new fibre BT Infinity network that is currently being rolled out across the country and will offer fibre optic broadband with a download speed of up to 40Mb. At the present time though coverage of the Virgin Media cable network is not being included which could adversely effect the listing of many properties that will only have the broadband speed listed to them that is availfable by a BT ADSL network which could be just 4Mb when in reality they could be receiving 50Mb broadband connections from Virgin Media.
Around 90% of properties for sale in the UK are listed on Rightmove so it has a huge importance to the property industry with many buyers using the portal when searching for potential new homes.
A source a Rightmove told The Telegraph:
“Broadband is becoming one of the most, if not the most, important considerations for prospective buyers. Many people fall in love with a home only to find out it can only get really slow internet. By listing broadband speed with all the other property details buyers will be able to weed out homes that don’t have high-speed access.”
Rightmove have also said that they are currently not in any sort of official partnership with BT.
We have long said that the broadband speeds could effect the sale of a house with houses with high speed broadband having an advantage over houses that have slower broadband connections. This latest step just goes to show how much importance broadband has on our daily lives and will only continue to grow in importance.
How long before adverts for homes change from: “4 Bed detached house with garage and conservatory” instead are reading “40Mb detached house with 4 beds and garage”.
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