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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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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October 18, 2010
Improvements in UK broadband has seen us climb up the broadband world rankings slightly to a position of 18th.
Out of the 72 countries that were studied the UK came in in 18th position, up from 25th place last year, but despite the increase in the world rankings we are still not one of the countries which are classed as “ready for tomorrow”.
The study done by Oxford University’s Said Business School for Cisco looked into the quality of the broadband and also the penetration of it. The quality aspect of the study looked at broadband connection speeds and the latency so basically how quickly data is transferred via the broadband connection.
The world top 10 for broadband is:
- South Korea
- Hong Kong
- Japan
- Iceland
- Switzerland
- Luxembourg
- Singapore
- Malta
- Netherlands
- United Arab Emirates
- Qatar
- Sweden
- Denmark
The UK didn’t fall into the category of countries which were “prepared for the online applications of tomorrow” but instead were in the “Comfortably enjoying today’s applications”. Last year there was only 1 country that was in the list of countries ready for applications of tomorrow, however this year it has dramatically risen to 14 countries.
With BT rolling out their own fibre broadband network (BT Infinity) we should hope to see the UK to continuing to go further up these lists and hopefully have a more “future proof” broadband network in place.
To highlight how important broadband speeds are (test your broadband speed with our free broadband speed test) the average global broadband speed in the last 3 years has increased by 49% from 3.2Mb in 2008, 4.8Mb in 2009 up to 5.9Mb in 2010.
Leading the way still is South Korea who can boast an average broadband download speed of 33.5Mb and they have 100% broadband penetration.
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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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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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