August 3, 2010
The UK has come in at 27th position for the Worlds fastest broadband speeds.
The disappointing position has seen the UK fall back 4 places from 23rd to 27th in the 201 countries that are speed tested, with the results published in Akamai’s “State Of The Internet” report that was released earlier this week. The results are for Quarter 1 of 2010.
The average of the broadband speed test results found that we on average a broadband speed of 3.8Mb, this is way behind the average of the leading countries, with South Korea averaging 12Mb broadband connections.
More than this, the list of top 100 cities based on average broadband speed didn’t see any UK cities listed, and there were only eight cities in Europe that made the list with Romania accounting for four of them. Japan were the clear leaders here with over half of the positions with an impressive 53 cities listed in the top 100.
The global average broadband speed was just 1.7Mb.
Last week we reported how Ofcom had done their own broadband speed test to find the average broadband speed in the UK of 5.2Mb so there is clearly some discrepancy between the two tests as to what our actual average broadband speed is.
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July 29, 2010
The speed of fixed line broadband has seen an increase of over 25 per cent in the last year in broadband speed test done by Ofcom.
After Ofcom conducted it’s own broadband speed test research in partnership with the broadband site SamKnows the results showed that broadband speeds on average were raised from 4.1Mb to 5.2Mb.
This speed increase comes as broadband providers continue to try and offer customers faster and faster broadband speeds, a statistic which is proved with the fact that in April 2009 just 8% of broadband users fixed line connections were advertised as above “up to” 10Mb, with that figure now raised to 24% on services offering above “up to” this speed.
With these increasing advertised headline speeds comes the fact that although on average broadband speeds have increased there is a growing gap between what users are advertised as their “up to” speed and what they are actually receiving.
In April 2009 the average advertised “up to” speed was 7.1Mb with the actual average broadband speed customers received being 4.1Mb which meant that users were receiving 58% of the advertised speed.
However, in May 2010 the average advertised broadband “up to” speed was 11.5Mb and the actual broadband speed customers received ion average was 5.2Mb which is just 45% of the advertised speed.
Unsurprisingly was the fact that Virgin Medias fibre broadband provided the fastest broadband, with the 10Mb and 20Mb which provided download speed around twice as fast as broadband packages offering similar headline speeds.
The fastest broadband speed was found to be on Virgin Medias 50Mb fibre broadband service which offered an average broadband download speed of 36Mb when done on a single thread test (when just 1 file is downloaded) and about 46Mb when a multi-thread test (when three files are downloaded at the same time which is more in line with how heavy broadband users use the Internet) was performed.
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May 28, 2010
The UK is lagging way back in 33rd spot based on world broadband speeds!
The league table was produced by Ookla, the internet speed tester who have performed over 1.5 billion speed tests since they launched and have compiled these average speed tests from the previous 30 days activity.
The top 5 countries for the fastest average download broadband speed test achieved were:
- South Korea (34.19 Mbps)
- Latvia (24.30 Mbps)
- Republic of Moldova (21.55 Mbps)
- Japan (20.35 Mbp)
- Sweden (19.81 Mbps)
The top 5 countries for the fastest average upload broadband speed test achieved were:
- South Korea (18.45 Mbps)
- Latvia (12.66 Mbps)
- Japan (11.01 Mbps)
- Lithuania (9.77 Mbps)
- Bulgaria (8.91 Mbps)
The UK are currently ranked 33rd with an average broadband download speed of 7.69Mb with a broadband speed that is pretty much bang on the global average of 6.67Mb.
On the upload side of things, things fair even worse with the UK down in 65th place with an average upload speed of just 0.91Mb.
These poor positions show that the UK has a big mountain to climb to boost itself up the ranks, this just goes to show how important the investment in fibre optic broadband is to help bring the UK closer to the countries who are leading the way for the fastest broadband.
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May 4, 2010
The latest set of broadband speed test results from broadband comparison site broadband.co.uk have been released and show no surprise with Virgin Media still topping the fastest broadband charts.
For the first time however, Virgin Media (www.virginmedia.com) have finally gone through the 9Mb average broadband speed barrier by registering an average broadband speed of 9.373Mb which is over 1.1Mb faster than they were last month and still way ahead of the broadband providers in second place of O2 & Be broadband (Be are owned by O2 and use the same network) who registered an average broadband speed of 5.654Mb.
Virgin Media are currently the safe first spot on these broadband speed tests as they have fibre optic broadband that has a headline speed of 50Mb. However, fibre optic networks are currently being installed by BT across the UK so we should start to hopefully see the broadband speeds start to rise for those broadband providers who use BT’s wholesale network via BT Infinity or another broadband provider.
The full table of the main broadband providers who are featured in the results and what their respective download speeds are is shown below:
- Virgin Media – 9.373Mb
- O2 & Be Broadband – 5.654Mb
- Sky Broadband – 3.734Mb
- Orange – 3.682Mb
- BT Broadband – 3.582Mb
- TalkTalk & Tiscali – 3.511Mb
- Eclipse Internet – 3.455Mb
- PlusNet – 2.811Mb
- AOL – 2.251Mb
The average broadband speed recorded from all the broadband providers was 4.958Mb so we would expect that next month we will finally see the average broadband speed hit the 5Mb marker which if so will have taken 13 months to achieve form when it finally went over the 4Mb mark.
Largely this will be down to Virgin Media who have in the last year added 3Mb to their average broadband speed, however O2/Be Broadband have actually gone backwards in the last year by being around 0.4Mb slower.
The average broadband upload speeds were also measured and the average across all the broadband providers was 0.482Mb, it is actually O2/Be who lead the way on the uploading speeds with Virgin Media in second place.
- O2 & Be Broadband – 0.729Mb
- Virgin Media – 0.594Mb
- Sky Broadband – 0.475Mb
- Orange – 0.448Mb
- BT Broadband – 0.401Mb
- TalkTalk/Tiscali – 0.348Mb
- Eclipse Internet – 0.396Mb
- PlusNet – 0.337Mb
- AOL – 0.319Mb
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March 11, 2010
Our satisfaction of Broadband speeds in the UK has reportedly fallen for the third year in a row!
A broadband speed satisfaction survey was done by broadband comparison website broadbandchoices.co.uk that had 8,000 respondents and around a third of those who answered were not satisfied with the broadband speeds that they received. The level of dissatisfaction since last year has increased where 27% were not satisfied and is basically double how dissatisfied users were in 2008 when 16% said they were not happy with their broadband speeds.
Broadband speeds for many is the main important factor they have with their internet connection, and with broadband speeds being the main selling points to many broadband deals alongside the price it is only to be expected that the speed we receive is of high importance.
Of those who responded, 28% of those said that they were planning on changing broadband providers because they were not happy with their broadband speeds.
It appears that the main dissatisfaction comes from those who are on standard 8Mb or below broadband deals, as the study also found that of the broadband subscribers who were on 24Mb and above broadband deals only 15% of these were not satisfied with their broadband speeds.
Demand for fast broadband is ever increasing, this is mainly because more and more online applications become available that require faster broadband connections, such as streaming TV and music live and the internet connections are used to do more tasks.
Not a day goes by when there is not more talk of the latest fibre optic broadband deployments. As such we anticipate that as broadband speeds increase the “bar” for what broadband speed we want to achieve will continue to be raised and once fibre broadband is deployed throughout the UK (BT are currently starting their roll out of fibre broadband) we anticipate that we will see those on ADSL2+ (24Mb broadband) becoming the ones who are not as satisfied of their broadband speeds.
One big bug-bear with broadband speeds is the advertised speeds are quite often not close to what the user is actually going to receive, the advertised “up to” speeds are the theoretical maximum broadband speeds users would be able to receive but there are very few, especially on standard copper wired ADSL who are likely to get this maximum speed.
Currently though, for those who are not satisfied with their broadband speeds should look to see if fibre broadband is available to them (Virgin Media) or if their telephone exchange has ADSL2+ enabled where they will be able to receive broadband speeds up to 24Mb and to consider changing their broadband provider if they are not happy with the download and upload speeds that they receive.
To see what broadband speed you receive use our free broadband speed test tool.
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February 26, 2010
New studies are to be undertook by Ofcom and the SamKnows website into the broadband speeds we receive.
 The research follows up successful broadband speed testing done last year between Ofcom and SamKnows and is designed to give a more accurate picture of our actual broadband connections and speeds and not just the advertised “up to” speeds that we all see.
Quite often there is a big difference between the advertised “up to” speed that broadband providers advertise and the actual broadband speed received by the consumer.
Volunteers are currently being recruited to take part in the study and if selected then they will be provided with a White Box that will be then used to monitor the web traffic for specific broadband providers.
With broadband in the UK rapidly changing and getting faster the information gathered will be interesting to see for those who are signed up to the next generation fibre broadband deals and those on the BT 21CN network.
The BT C1CN network is due to offer ADSL2+ technology to around 75% of UK homes by Spring 2011 which is able to deliver theoretical maximum broadband speeds of 24Mb.
We also have the huge investment in fibre optic networks currently taking place, with BT rolling out their own fibre broadband network which will offer broadband speed up to 40Mb, Virgin Media already have a 50Mb broadband package and announced yesterday that by the end of the year that they will be starting to roll out Virgin Media 100Mb broadband via their new DOCSIS 3 network.
The last broadband testing that was funded by Ofcom to be done via the “White Box” in 2009 found that the average broadband speed was 4.1Mb which was the equivalent of 57% of the advertised headline speed.
CEO of SamKnows, Alex Salter said:
“What started out as a project to monitor and report on the UK’s broadband connectivity in general, it instead highlighted that a clear discrepancy exists between what the ISPs are saying and what the end consumer is actually receiving.
What we’re looking to measure in the forthcoming project is how this ISP performance will improve as consumers switch to services which are being advertised as significantly faster.”
It is anticipated that the broadband speeds of users will increase throughout the year as new technologies become rolled out and made available to more people and as such we would expect the average broadband speed we are receiving to also rise in line with this.
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February 15, 2010
YouTube have added a new part to their site that is titled “YouTube Video Speed History” and is to show users what their average video speed is from their location in the previous month.
A graph is produced to show how your connection compares to averages for your country, ISP and globally.
Although it is not that useful it is useful to see how your Internet connection compares to others and if you do appear to have any speed issues. Another way to check your broadband speed is to run a broadband speed test that will show your your upload and download speeds.
To view this YouTube My Speed page simply visit: www.youtube.com/my_speed
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February 4, 2010
The latest monthly broadband speed test results from Broadband.co.uk once again see Virgin Media topping the broadband speeds list.
The broadband speed test results are collected from the broadband speed tests performed in January 2010.
Below are the average broadband speeds recorded for 10 of the UK’s broadband providers.
Virgin Media – 7.651Mb
O2 ( Be Broadband ) – 5.113Mb
TalkTalk – 3.628Mb
Sky Broadband – 3.336Mb
Eclipse Internet – 3.106Mb
Orange – 3.055Mb
BT – 2.982Mb
Tiscali – 2.788Mb
PlusNet – 2.732Mb
AOL – 2.131Mb
It is little surprise to see Virgin Media still placed up at the top, with their fibre optic broadband network they are able to offer much faster broadband speeds, with their headline deal offering up to 50Mb broadband.
We envisage that we will start to see other broadband speeds to increase for other broadband providers who use the BT Wholesale network as BT have started the roll out of BT Infinity, their own fibre broadband network.
The average broadband speed achieved across the broadband providers tested was 4.275Mb, this is in fact a 0.2Mb broadband speed decrease on the December 2009 speed test results.
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January 14, 2010
The UK is positioned way down the list of broadband nations in the latest study of the worldwide broadband market.
We are positioned in a disappointing 26th in the league table of broadband speeds after research done by Akamai was published in their latest quarterly “State of the Internet” report for Q3 2009.
Topping the list is South Korea who have an average broadband speed of 14.6Mb, Japan 7.9Mb, Hong Kong 7.6Mb, Romania 6.2Mb, Sweden 5.7Mb and Ireland 5.3Mb.
Looking down the list the USA comes in with 3.9Mb and the UK with just 3.5Mb average broadband speed. Globally the average broadband speed is just 1.7Mb.
The positive to look at this is that it means that we have plenty of scope to catch up providing the continued investment in fibre broadband continues which will bring us much faster broadband speeds.
The full table of countries and their broadband speeds can be viewed below. For anyone who wants to see how fats their own broadband connection is can do so by running a broadband speed test.
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November 25, 2009
The average mobile broadband speeds that were found by BroadbandGenie show that from the 3,600 users that were tested the average speed was less than 1Mb.
The exact figure they found was a mobile broadband speed of just 0.87Mb which is hugely slower than the advertised 3.6Mb and 7.2Mb that is advertised by the mobile broadband providers.
Of those who used the broadband speed test those who managed a mobile broadband speed of 3Mb or above was just 0.5%, with 65% getting speeds that were under 1Mb, with 39% of these results actually being under 0.5Mb!
Around a quarter (26%) got speeds of between 1Mb and 2Mb and just 7% managed to get between 2Mb and 3Mb.
What the big hope is that when 4G services start getting rolled out that mobile broadband speeds will increase dramatically, but hopefully the mobile broadband providers won’t just increase their advertised top speeds to speeds way greater than are likely to be received by most like most currently do at the moment.
There is more problems with mobile broadband still, with the use of smartphones and people using the Internet on the move more the capacity for mobile broadband is being stretched hugely as demand starts to close in on what is actually avai;lable, again 4G technology will hopefully go a long way to sorting this when it is launched.
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