UK residential broadband average speeds have increased by 1.4 meg to 9.0 meg according to speed research conducted by Ofcom. The increased speeds recorded in May 2012 show an 18% increase on the 7.6 meg recorded in November 2011, the majority of this being either consumers choosing faster packages, or ISPs migrating users on to faster speed broadband.
The maximum speed measured rose on average 1.8 meg to 10.0 meg and the peak-period average speed, which is measured between 8pm and 10pm rose by 1.4 meg also to 8.8 meg, keeping just 0.2 meg behind the average speed.
Speeds have risen in all categories that Ofcom segregate data into as can be seen in the graph below.
Average actual broadband speeds: November/December 2010 - May 2012 (Source: Ofcom)
For users on connection speeds between 2 meg and 10 meg, the average speed rose by 0.3 meg to 5.6 meg. The increase here was put down to a migration of users from ADSL to ADSL2+ products as BT upgrades its network, bumping these users out of this category. This has left a larger proportion of users on the 10 meg Virgin Media cable product, which clocks in with a more steady average speed (9.6 meg) which has pulled the average up slightly. The faster range above 10 meg but below 30 meg (the speed above which broadband is classified as superfast) also saw a small increase of 0.3 meg to 7.3 meg. Users in this category saw a similar effect, with consumers upgrading to superfast services faster than Virgin 20 meg customers were migrated to the Virgin 60 meg products.
With users migrating to faster speeds, over two thirds of UK residential broadband now have an advertised speed which is sold as being over 'up to 10 meg'. The number of people on superfast broadband connections (those with a speed faster than 30 meg) has risen from 5% to 8% and the average speed within the category has also risen marginally (by 0.3 meg). This small rise might have been expected to be higher considering that BT Openreach have increased the baseline speed of their fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) products to 80 meg from 40 meg, and Virgin are running a speed doubling programme to boost end user speeds. These will take time to filter through to end users already on these services however and can be expected to have more of an effect in the next Ofcom speed report. An issue with BT homehubs also adversely affected some results as some users saw broadband speeds running at only 1 meg. With these results excluded, the superfast broadband category would be 36.9 meg, however Ofcom left these in the data, providing an accurate representation of what users experienced.
Time of day variations commonly affect broadband products and it affects some more than others. Comparing data to Ofcom's last speed report shows that whilst the average speed of all connections is faster even at peak times (8pm - 10pm on weekdays), on the faster broadband products the average speed is actually lower. Comparison of all speed categories is not possible as product speeds and categories have changed as providers adjust the services they offer.
| Max Nov 2011 |
Max May 2012 |
24hr avg Nov 2011 |
24hr avg May 2012 |
Peak Nov 2011 |
Peak May 2012 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All connections | 8.2 | 10.0 | 7.6 | 9.0 | 7.4 | 8.8 |
| Up to 30 meg Cable |
31.9 | 33.1 | 31.0 | 30.1 | 30.8 | 29.4 |
| Up to 38/40 meg FTTC |
37.3 | 33.4 | 36.0 | 29.9 | 35.8 | 29.5 |
The trend here is that the faster broadband services are actually performing slower than in the previous six months. Ofcom looked at the FTTC speeds generally falling (including the 80 meg products within the average) and suggested that this was likely to be due to the BT Homehub bug and also could be due to users on longer lines being connected to BT's fibre cabinets pulling down the average. With the percentage change in the number of users moving on to 'superfast' products being quite low (only a 3% increase) and as the change also affects Virgin users, it could be indicative that with more people upgrading to faster products generally (including the lower speed rise in users moving from ADSL to ADSL2+) they are hitting more congestion within the ISPs networks.
In terms of ISP speeds, Virgin came out top as they offer a higher headline speed product of up to 100 meg compared with BT's 76 meg. Ofcom data in this category provides 95% confidence in the data, meaning that they are 95% certain the average speed lies within the range specified. In ADSL2+ products, O2/BE came out with the highest maximum and average speeds - with a range of 9.1 meg - 10.9 meg. Sky clocked in the lowest 24hr average at 7 meg - 8.5 meg. Virgin users on their 100 meg product achieved an average within the range 85.7 meg to 90 meg.
Whilst upload speeds are important to some users, Ofcom only give these some cursory analysis and do not provide an average upload speed. O2/BE came out top in the ADSL2+ range of products with an average maximum upload speed of 1.1 meg (significantly faster than other ISPs packages). BT and Orange recorded 0.9 meg. BT's fastest 76 meg FTTC package, recorded an average over the 24hour period of 15.6 meg. Virgin's results were hard to compare due to upload speed upgrades coming later than the download upgrades meaning some slower packages actually had higher upload speeds than the faster products!
The full Ofcom report can be found here.
Interesting that the 2Meg to 10Meg, and 10Meg to 30 Meg rose only slightly. My own upgrade from ADSL to ADSL2+ resulted in a 92% increase in speed. Can we assume that for every good increase there are several bad or zero increases?
Might a poll on ADSL to ADSL2/2+ percentage increases be revealing?