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October 25, 2011

UK down in 25th spot for global broadband speed

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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- Filed under: Broadband Speeds,News
- Tags: Akamai, Broadband Speeds, Rankings of broadband countries, State Of The Internet, UK broadband speeds, World broadband speeds —
Author: Mark @ 8:17 am

March 3, 2011

Broadband speeds half of advertised “up to” speeds

The average broadband download speed is less than half of the “up to” speeds that are advertised by some broadband providers.

Ofcom were submitting their findings to the Committee for Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee for Advertising Practice (BCAP) over the advertising of broadband speeds investigation that is being undertaken to try and make it clearer to consumers what broadband speeds they are likely to receive when signing up to an broadband package.

Ofcoms findings were mainly attached to broadband that is delivered via a phone line as this form of receiving broadband tends not to bring the potential of the advertised “up to” speeds. It was found that in November/December 2010 the average broadband speed was 6.2Mb which is less than half of the advertised broadband speed of 13.8Mb.

The study looked not only at copper based ADSL services but also fibre and cable services too. The copper based ADSL services are the ones which bring the biggest difference between advertised and actual broadband speeds. The average download speed for an advertised “up to” 20/24Mb ADSL broadband service which uses copper cable to deliver the broadband was just 6.2Mb, this is just 29sp% of the advertised up to speed. “Up to” 8Mb ADSL services produced an average broadband speed of 3.4Mb which is just 42% of the advertised “up to “speed.
A tiny 3% of customers on an “up to” 20/24Mb advertised broadband package received over 16Mb!

BT’s Fibre To The Cabinet service (BT Infinity) which uses fibre optic cable to the street side cabinet and then standard copper telephone lines to the customers house produced much closer speeds between the advertised “up to” and the actual speeds. BT advertises it’s BT Infinity service at “up to” 40Mb, the results of the broadband speed tests performed produced average broadband speeds of 31.1Mb which is 78% of the advertised speed.

Finally Cable services from Virgin Media which use fibre optic cable to the street side cabinet and then coaxial cable to the premises have advertised “up to” speeds of 50Mb broadband and the average download speed received was 46Mb and on average delivered between 90-96% of the advertised speeds.

Ofcom are suggesting that a Typical Speed Range (TSR) that is actually achievable to at least half of customers should be used when advertising broadband speeds.

Ofcom has produced a Typical Speed Range that it thinks broadband providers should use when advertising broadband speeds.

ofcom typical speed range Broadband speeds half of advertised up to speedsWhat is positive to take from the results is that how much faster fibre broadband is and that it can bring much more stable and reliable broadband to customers.

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- Filed under: Broadband Speeds
- Tags: broadband half of advertised up to speeds, broadband speed test, Broadband Speeds, Up To broadband speeds —
Author: Mark @ 10:26 am

November 18, 2010

“Broadband Speed con” campaign launched by Virgin Media

Virgin Media are launching it’s “Stop The Broadband Con” scheme that is aiming to change broadband providers advertising mis-leading “up to” broadband speeds.

stop the broadband con Broadband Speed con campaign launched by Virgin MediaThe reason Virgin are running this campaign will be because being a cable broadband provider they are the least affected by a big difference between their advertised broadband speeds and actual broadband speeds delivered to customers compared to standard DSL broadband providers.

The fundamental issues behind the campaign are valid and companies advertising broadband “up to” a certain speed yet in many instances delivering speeds less than half of this speed does make it very misleading to customers.

The fact that ultimately the campaign will be to benefit and promote Virgin Media as a broadband company who can deliver broadband speeds close to their advertised speeds means that the gesture and reasoning behind the campaign is hardly selfless but none the less, if it does help change the way that broadband providers advertise their services with misleading broadband speeds then ultimately it may work out good for the industry.

Virgin Medias executive director of broadband, Jon James, said:

“People are paying for superfast broadband but receiving a service stuck in the slow lane. Broadband providers need to stop advertising speeds that not a single customer can receive and we’re asking people to support our call for change by signing up to stopthebroadbandcon.org. Faster broadband means better broadband, whether you’re surfing the web, watching TV online or downloading music and UK consumers deserve superfast broadband they can trust, rather than having to rely on the fairytales and broken promises of current broadband advertising.“

The slight issue with the campaign is that Virgin Media still advertise their services as “up to” a certain speed, the stats suggest that on average they do deliver customers with around 90% of the advertised headline speed but again this by some would make their call for this campaign a bit flawed.

Stats from Ofcom found that in May 2010 that DSL broadband providers were delivering just 33% of the headline speed for advertised “up to” 20Mb or 24Mb services with a speed on average of just 6.5Mb.
The reason for this is that DSL providers use BT’s copper network to transfer data for broadband, the distance customers are form the local exchange and also the quality of the cable can affect the broadband speed hugely. Fibre optic providers such as Virgin Media do not receive as much loss in broadband speeds over these distances than those providers on DSL connections.

Richard Branson the founder of the Virgin Group, said:

“Staying connected is central to our lives and we all deserve broadband we can trust. I’m challenging all broadband providers to be honest with their customers and ask people to add their voice to the campaign by signing up to Stopthebroadbandcon.org.“

The easy way to check how fast your Internet connection is running at is to use our free broadband speed test tool, it will show you what your upload and download speed are running at.

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- Filed under: Broadband Speeds
- Tags: broadband speed test, Broadband Speeds, Stop The Broadband Con, stopthebroadbandcon.org, Up To broadband speeds —
Author: Mark @ 11:46 am

October 15, 2010

Broadband reliability more important than broadband speeds

Broadband reliability is more important than broadband speed according to results from a YouGov survey done for Sky broadband (www.sky.com).

The study found that 44% of those that replied said that they “don’t know” or “don’t care” how fast their broadband speed is providing that it is reliable and works while 30% said that the stability of their broadband connection (slow at peak hours, faster off-peak) was a frustration to them.

Just 14% said that they would pay more for faster broadband speeds but these results would probably read the opposite way around if it was done in some remote and rural areas that only get very slow broadband connections currently.

Interestingly when choosing a broadband provider 39% said that value for money was the most important thing yet once connected to the broadband provider the value for money drops to just 19% while the reliability of it becomes more important at 36%.

The murky subject of “Unlimited” deals still showed that customers are not happy with being mis-sold this aspect of the broadband deal. With around half of those questioned not knowing if they had any restrictions and if so what they were on their broadband package yet 64% thought that “Unlimited” broadband packages should be just that and not have any usage restriction in place on them.

Delia Bushell, Sky’s Director or Broadband and Telephony said:

“Consumers are getting more from their broadband than ever. It is all too easy to forget about the way broadband has transformed our lives and, as the research shows, it has made our lives easier, cheaper and more fulfilling. Broadband is no longer a “nice-to-have” – it’s a vital part of modern day life.

When deciding on which broadband service to choose, consumers are making decisions based on a wide range of factors. What this research has done is to cut through the noise around broadband speeds and listen to what the majority of broadband users say about what matters to them.

In short, people want broadband that works, transparency over what they are getting, and a price that suits their pocket.“

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- Filed under: Home Broadband
- Tags: Broadband reliability, broadband reliability more important than broadband speed, Broadband Speeds —
Author: Mark @ 2:58 pm

February 4, 2010

Average broadband speeds for January 2010 at 4.275Mb

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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- Filed under: Fibre broadband,Home Broadband
- Tags: broadband speed test, Broadband Speeds, January 2010 broadband speeds —
Author: Mark @ 12:33 pm

September 22, 2009

Mobile broadband speeds way below what are advertised

A study into mobile broadband speeds has found that on average that mobile broadband users are receiving just 24% of the advertised headline speeds.

Mobile broadband speeds way below what are advertisedThe study done by “Broadband Expert” a broadband comparison site tested 3,342 mobile broadband connections between 1st March 2009 and 31st August 2009 with the average download speed coming in at 1.1Mb which is way below the advertised maximum of 4.5Mb.

Vodafone offered the fastest mobile broadband speeds at 1.3Mb, although they also advertised their mobile broadband at speeds up to 7.2Mb and so in effect only delivered speeds at 18% of what they were advertising.

The actual average broadband speeds between the mobile broadband providers was very close, although T-Mobile offered the slowest speed of 0.9Mb.

Vodafone will have a lot of work to do as they have recently started deploying technology that they say will be able to provide mobile broadband speeds up to 14.4Mb. If they continue on with how they have performed in this test then the average speed that users will receive is 2.6Mb.

Also, with MiFi (Mobile WiFi) being introduced there is even more need for the mobile broadband providers to get their broadband speeds faster to make the use of MiFi more usable.

You can test your broadband speed by using a speed test.

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- Filed under: Mobile Broadband
- Tags: broadband speed test, Broadband Speeds, Mobile Broadband, Mobile broadband speed, Vodafone mobile broadband —
Author: Mark @ 11:07 am

July 28, 2009

Average broadband speed in UK is 4.1Mb

Ofcom has revealed it’s findings on broadband speeds that we are receiving in the UK and has found that the average speed we receive is 4.1Mb.

They recorded over 60 million readings from broadband speed tests that were performed in 1,600 homes from November 2008 to April 2009 and allowed Ofcom to compare the results of the 9 largest UK broadband providers.

The results from April 2009 showed that the average broadband speed in the UK was 4.1Mb which was lower than the average advertised “up to” speed which was at 7.1Mb.

Of those who were on an “up to” 8Mb service only 9% of them received a broadband speed over 6Mb and 19% received below 2Mb.
As is no surprise those broadband users living in urban areas received faster broadband speeds than those living in rural areas with those in urban areas receiving on average 4.6Mb and those in rural areas 3.3Mb

The results for the broadband providers tested were as follows:

AOL (‘up to’ 8Mbit/s)                        3.3 to 3.9Mbit/s
BT (‘up to’ 8Mbit/s)                           3.8 to 4.2Mbit/s
O2 (‘up to’ 8Mbit/s)*                        4.1 to 5.1Mbit/s
Orange (‘up to’ 8Mbit/s)                   3.8 to 4.5Mbit/s
Plusnet (‘up to’ 8Mbit/s)*                 3.8 to 4.9Mbit/s
Sky (‘up to’ 8Mbit/s)                         4.0 to 4.7Mbit/s
Talk Talk (‘up to’ 8Mbit/s)                 3.8 to 4.6Mbit/s
Tiscali (‘up to’ 8Mbit/s)                     3.2 to 3.7Mbit/s
Virgin Media (‘up to’ 10Mbit/s)          8.1 to 8.7Mbit/s

*Data for O2 and Plusnet should be treated with caution as sampled sizes were smaller than for other ISPs

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- Filed under: Home Broadband
- Tags: broadband speed test, Broadband Speeds, Ofcom —
Author: Mark @ 3:53 pm


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