The fastest broadband providers

by John Fitzsimons on 15 August 2012  |  9 comments
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A new Ofcom report has revealed which broadband providers offer the fastest speeds.

Average UK broadband speeds have increased to 9.0 Megabits per second (Mbps), up nearly 20% on November 2011, the latest research from Ofcom has revealed.

The study, conducted in May, included some of the new ‘superfast’ broadband deals now on offer from Virgin Media and BT.

Superfast packages now account for 8% of residential broadband connections, up from 5% in November and 2% a year ago.

Ofcom reckons that the increasing average speeds are a sign that more of us are willing to move suppliers to ensure that we get the fastest possible deal. It pointed out that while 48% of users were on packages with advertised speeds of up to 10Mbps in May last year, that figure has rocketed to 68% this year.

That’s not just a result of us all switching over to superfast deals though, as Ofcom highlights plenty of users have seen their broadband speeds improve as a result of network upgrades “at little or no cost to consumers”.

The fastest broadband suppliers

Ofcom studied 12 difference broadband packages in the report – seven normal broadband deals and five superfast packages. Below are the average download speeds for the non-superfast services.

As an O2 broadband user, I have to say I’m pretty pleased with those results, with O2 delivering the highest speeds during peak hours. However, there was still a bigger drop-off in speeds between 8pm and 10pm than from others, such as BT and Sky.

At the other end of the scale, Orange customers experienced some significant drops during peak hours.

And here’s how the superfast packages performed.

So the Virgin Media package promising speeds of upto 100Mbps is in fact the fastest around, despite some pretty significant drop-offs from its maximum.

In fact, when it comes to superfast broadband, Virgin Media customers are likely to see more significant drop-offs from the maximum speeds than BT customers across the board.

Are you getting what you pay for?

The big issue for many broadband users is how the speed they receive compares to the speed that they thought they were signing up for in the first place.

New guidance was brought in earlier this year requiring advertised speeds to be achievable by at least 10% of the relevant customer base.

Ofcom says this has already had an effect, with many providers with ADSL2+ services dropping the advertised rates from ‘upto 24Mbps’ (which is the theoretical maximum speed, but rarely achieved) to a more realistic ‘upto 16Mbps’.

How does your broadband perform against its advertised speeds? Is there a noticeable drop off in speeds at peak times? Is speed the main factor when choosing a broadband package? Let us know your thoughts in the comment bow below.

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