O2 have topped the mobile broadband speed test charts for downloading music to be found as the fastest mobile broadband provider in the UK with Vodafone found as the fastest for downloading web pages.
Although the test were commission by O2 they were performed by an independent contractor with the results being independently verified by the British Approvals Broad for Telecommunications (BABT).
The tests were performed by Siroda who tested the mobile broadband speeds of the mobile broadband providers at the 20 largest UK cities during January, which included London, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle and Sheffield.
Music files were downloaded and the speed measured and also the time it took to load web pages with the tests taking place between 10am and 10pm Monday to Sunday over a 60 day period.
Of the 20 cities that the tests were performed at, O2 Mobile broadband was fastest at 12 of these locations and second in 4 of the other locations.
In London, O2 Mobile broadband on average took 1.7 seconds to download a web page which was 30% fastest than the slowest operator.
It was quite an even spread overall for the web page download speeds for the 20 cities tested.
Below shows the mobile broadband operator and how many cities they were quickest at loading web pages at with Vodafone just topping the charts.
O2 – 4
Orange – 4
Three – 3
Vodafone – 5
T-Mobile – 4
The results for the fastest for downloading music files are as follows.
O2 – 12
Orange – 0
Three – 1
Vodafone – 5
T-Mobile – 2
Towards the end part of 2009, O2 installed 40 new masts around London in a £30 million investment in its network infrastructure and with London being one of the places that O2 came top in this investment will have helped them with their mobile broadband speeds.
What we need is this same investment to be taken in other locations around the UK to help build on the mobile broadband speeds that other parts of the country can receive.

O2 have halved the price of their
Users have until 30th July to take part in the mobile broadband “amnesty” and receive their free Pay & Go mobile broadband dongle which gives users the chance to try without commitment what O2 mobile broadband can offer them.
The website benm.at has available some software that will allows access to the tethering service meaning that the iPhone can be used as a mobile broadband modem with the 3Gb data transfer limit for free.