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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November 6, 2009
The latest set of broadband speed test results for October 2009 compiled by broadband.co.uk still have Virgin Media leading the way with the fastest broadband speeds.
The results are compiled from broadband speed tests that are performed each month for 10 of the most popular broadband providers in the UK.
Virgin were head and shoulders in front by averaging a broadband download speed of 7.328Mb and 2.3Mb faster than O2 & Be Broadband (they use the same infrastructure) who came in second place with 5.019Mb.
Virgin are expected to be at the top as they have a fibre optic broadband network and have a broadband package with a headline speed of 50Mb, we do anticipate that when BT’s fibre network is rolled out that the gap will close slightly.
Coming in slowest was AOL broadband who recorded an average broadband speed of just 2.183Mb with the average across the 10 broadband providers being 4.328Mb.
The broadband provider and their average broadband speed for each are listed below.
Virgin Media – 7.260Mb
O2 ( Be Broadband ) – 5.019Mb
Eclipse Internet – 3.899Mb
Sky Broadband – 3.512Mb
TalkTalk – 3.357Mb
Orange – 3.199
BT – 2.920Mb
Tiscali – 2.770Mb
PlusNet – 2.559Mb
AOL – 2.183Mb
For the first time Virgin Media managed to average over 8Mb broadband speed (8.303Mb) for speed tests taken between midnight and 8am.
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October 2, 2009
Britain has come dragging it’s heels into either 25th or 31st place depending on how the results are taken for broadband in the world, with countries like Latvia, Lithuania and Romania all coming higher up the list than us.
The results from the survey that was done by Oxford University and sponsored by Cisco said that the broadband in the UK only meets the needs for today and not for the future.
The difference between South Korea who top the league and the UK is that while we have our Digital Britain report that said that there should be a minimum universal broadband speed in the UK of 2Mb by 2012 the South Korean government has promised a universal speed of up to 1Gb by 2012!
The “Broadband Quality Score” was worked out by combining the download speed, upload speed and the latency.
Hopefully the investment in fibre broadband that BT are currently doing will bring us back more into contention with other countries round the world.
The average broadband speed achieved globally was 4.75Mb with an average upload speed of 1.3Mb, it is thought that in the future the average download speed will need to be 11.25Mb and an average upload speed of 5Mb to handle future applications such as high definition video.
The results for the study were taken from broadband speed test site speedtest.net.
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August 28, 2009
The broadband speeds that we receive in the UK have us sat outside the top 30 of other developed countries!
The research was carried out by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) who also found that the USA is positions in 29th position with an average broadband speed of 5.1 Mb.
Other countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands have increased their average speeds to 12.8 Mb and 11 Mb respectively, however South Korea who top the list offer an average broadband speed of 20.4 Mb.
The roll out and introduction of next generation super fast broadband has started int he UK and these results who that it is well and truly needed if we are not to fall any further behind other developed countries.
You can test your own broadband speed with our free broadband speed test that will give you your download and upload speeds.
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August 18, 2009
BT is to upgrade the broadband speed of BT broadband customers for free. Currently BT customers on “up to” 8Mb deals will see their “up to” speed increased to 20Mb for those who are in enabled areas where ADSL2+ technology is installed.
 Currently this will mean that around 10 million UK homes and business will benefit, this is around 40% of the population when the initial 549 exchanges that are ADSL2+ enabled are put to the higher broadband speeds. It is hoped that by March 2010 that around 55% of the UK population will be on the new faster 20Mb broadband speeds.
We also reported last week (Free iPlate for BT Broadband customers) about the “BT Broadband Accelerator”, also known as the iPlate, that BT are now offering to BT Broadband customers for free (just the cost of postage to pay – £1.20) that has shown that over 50% broadband speed increases can be achieved by fitting the device.
You can test to see what the maximum broadband speed you are likely to be able to receive is by entering your post code or telephone number on the checker on BT’s website available here.
You can also check what broadband speed you are receiving with our free broadband speed test.
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July 9, 2009
Worldwide home broadband connections are set to hit 500 million by next year showing that despite the global recession there is still a huge demand to have fast Internet access.
Futuresource Consulting were the people behind the research that also found that 60% of broadband connections are supplied via standard DSL through the local telephone line, with 20% having their broadband delivered by cable.
Although the saturation of broadband in many developed countries means that new broadband connections won’t grow rapidly like we have seen in previous years, there is however still other countries that are likely to see broadband connections in the home boom in numbers.
India for example currently has only around 2% of households with a broadband connection with around 5 million homes, over the next 4 years the research found that they expect this to rise to as many as 25 million homes.
Other areas that are likely to see a large increase in new broadband customers are Africa and the Middle East where this year alone there could be an estimated growth of 33% according to Patrik Pfandler, Senior Market Analyst of Futuresource Consulting.
In terms of broadband speed Japan and South Korea are the leaders who offer an average broadband speed of 30Mb, this is over twice as fast as the closest European country (Sweden) that has an average of 14Mb. The UK falls even further back than this with an average in the region of 4Mb. The average broadband speed int he USA last year was just 2.7Mb.
With this in mind it calls the UK governments plans for a minimum 2Mb broadband available throughout the UK by 2012 as very unambitious. The recently released Digital Britain report set this as a minimum broadband speed for everyone in the UK to be able to receive.
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July 6, 2009
The latest monthly broadband speed test results have been released for the month of June from broadband comparison website broadband.co.uk.
As is the trend with the previous results we yet again see a slight increase in the average broadband speed that we receive, with this time the average speed being 4.34Mb which is up 0.092 Mb from 4.248 Mb in May.
There is also a tiny increase in the upload speed which now stands at 0.433 Mb.
Virgin Media top the charts showing an average broadband speed of 6.135 Mb, but as they run their own fibre broadband network they are able to offer much faster speeds than the other broadband providers who are still using ADSL and ADSL2+ technology. The headline deal from Virgin Media offers 50Mb broadband!
The second fastest broadband provider is once again O2 Broadband (who also own Be Broadband), however their average broadband speed actually fell very slightly last month to 5.632 Mb, although their upload speed has a very healthy average of 0.748 Mb, which is hugely faster then their next nearest rival, TalkTalk, who have an upload speed of 0.481 Mb.
O2 are an LLU operator and use ADSL2+ technology which means they have advertised maximum speeds of up to 20Mb.
Once again it was AOL broadband who performed slowest knocking up an average broadband speed of just 2.143 Mb.
To test the speed your broadband works at you need to use a free and simple broadband speed test that will show your download and upload speeds so you can see how you fair.
The broadband providers tested are the 10 largest and most users broadband providers which is why some of the smaller ones don’t feature in the results.
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July 1, 2009
An enquiry into UK broadband speeds is to be done by MP’s who are on the Commons Business and Enterprise Committee.
Following the Digital Britain Report that was launched a couple of weeks ago that said that a USC (Universal Service Commitment) of at least 2Mb broadband should be available for everyone in Britain by 2012.
The enquiry is going amongst other things to look at whether or not that this 2Mb limit is actually ambitious enough, and when you compare it to South Korea who’s government has set a minimum broadband speed of 1GB then it does show up how much slower we are aiming for.
Also to be looked at is the 50p per month/£6 per year levy to be added to everyone with a fixed copper phone line to help raise funds to pay for next generation broadband for the estimate 30% of the country that are in areas that it is not financially feasible for BT or Virgin Media to roll out to.
BT are already starting the roll out of fibre broadband to start to replace their now ageing copper network that currently most use to receive their phone and broadband.
Broadband users can test the speed of their broadband with our broadband speed test.
Anyone wanting to send any correspondence for the enquiry should visit this page for details http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/berr/becpn47_0809.cfm
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June 4, 2009
BT broadband customers are to have their broadband speeds boosted from 8Mb up to 20Mb as BT upgrades to ADSL2+ technology to their broadband customers.
BT has been running a trial with 60,000 customers who have been able to enjoy the free broadband speed increase and now they are going to roll this out to more of their network.
To begin with 549 of the telephone exchanges on BT’s 21 CN platform will have the service extended to them, this is around 40% of BT’s network. By March 2010 BT plans to have this extended to cover 55% of their network although this depends up on customer demand for it. We can’t see why any of BT’s 4.8 million broadband customers wouldn’t be wanting to have a large speed increase in their area for free though.
On top of this, BT are also going to offer some of their home and business customers a Broadband Accelerator (I-Plate) for free, that is designed to cut out electrical interference in a line which will increase broadband speeds and reliability.
It is a good move by BT who have in recent months been left behind a bit in the broadband speed front, especially by the likes of Virgin Media who are plugging how fast they can offer broadband on their fibre broadband network and how fast they will be able to offer in future stating headline speeds faster than BT have said there own fibre network will offer.
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