Peak and off peak performance at the largest UK broadband providers in May 2018
The speeds in broadband advertising at least from all the major providers may now be more honest, but since the averages displayed are usually based on multiple downloads at the same time it tells the public nothing about the ability to perform tasks such as video streaming.
| Off-Peak Tests Results April 2018 Off-Peak defined as midnight to 5.59pm Median Average | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Provider | tbbx1 Streaming Test (1 download) | httpx6 Test (6 downloads) | % difference between tbbx1 and httpx6 speeds | Upload Speed | Quality Lower is Better Grade A = Best | Latency |
| BT | 32.2 Mbps | 36.6 Mbps | -12.0% | 7.3 Mbps | 0.3 - Grade A | 37ms |
| EE | 17.2 Mbps | 19.4 Mbps | -11.3% | 3.1 Mbps | 0.7 - Grade A | 47ms |
| Plusnet | 24.0 Mbps | 28.2 Mbps | -14.9% | 5.2 Mbps | 0.4 - Grade A | 42ms |
| Sky | 15.3 Mbps | 18.1 Mbps | -15.5% | 3.5 Mbps | 0.5 - Grade A | 49ms |
| TalkTalk | 14.8 Mbps | 16.8 Mbps | -11.9% | 2.7 Mbps | 0.4 - Grade A | 48ms |
| Virgin Media | 46.5 Mbps | 75.5 Mbps | -38.4% | 7.3 Mbps | 0.9 - Grade B | 36ms |
| Vodafone Home Broadband (*) | 25.8 Mbps | 32.9 Mbps | -21.6% | 7.1 Mbps | 0.4 - Grade A | 35ms |
| Zen Internet (*) | 26.9Mbps | 35.7 Mbps | -24.6% | 8.3 Mbps | 0.2 - Grade A | 38ms |
If you want to make a direct comparison between the day time and evening period then you should use the percentage and quality columns, i.e. if the percentages are similar in the day and evening period then this suggests no massive slow down at peak time on average though as always with the median average it will mask those at the extreme ends.
| Peak Tests Results April 2018 Peak time defined as 6pm to 11:59pm Median Average | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Provider | tbbx1 Test (1 download) | httpx6 Test (6 downloads) | % difference between tbbx1 and httpx6 speeds | Upload Speed | Quality Lower is Better Grade A = Best | Latency |
| BT | 31.6 Mbps | 36.9 Mbps | -14.3% | 7.4 Mbps | 0.3 - Grade A | 38ms |
| EE | 11.8 Mbps | 13.7 Mbps | -13.9% |
1.5 Mbps |
0.7 - Grade A | 53ms |
| Plusnet | 24.5 Mbps | 29 Mbps | -15.5% | 5.4 Mbps | 0.4 - Grade A | 41ms |
| Sky | 15.7 Mbps | 19.2 Mbps | -18.2% | 3.9 Mbps | 0.6 - Grade A |
50ms |
| TalkTalk | 14.2 Mbps | 17 Mbps | -16.5% | 2.3 Mbps | 0.5 - Grade A | 53ms |
| Virgin Media | 50 Mbps | 79.3 Mbps | -36.9% | 9.0 Mbps | 1.0 - Grade B |
36ms |
| Vodafone Home Broadband (*) | 22.6 Mbps | 31.9 Mbps | -29.1% | 6.9 Mbps | 0.4 - Grade A | 41ms |
| Zen Internet (*) | 26.9 Mbps | 35.7 Mbps | -24.6% | 8.6 Mbps | 0.2 - Grade A | 38ms |
(*) sample sizes are smaller which is to be expected given the size of the customer base, but this also means there is a risk that swings each month may be down to the population of people testing changing. We have monitored these two providers for some months before adding them to our public results and the population of testers appears to be give reproducible results each month hence their inclusion.
These results are unusual as they are the only ones where we don't do any product detection i.e. split providers into their various products, it is also a subset of all the speed test data we have since a number of the partners who use our broadband speed test technology that do not run the full test suite.
Comments
Still, even with the issues VM have, their single threaded speed is more than any other providers' multithreaded speed.
I'm with Uno via TalkTalk on their top tier FTTC product, this used to be a solid 74Mbps single threaded test anytime of day, but over the last few months its been dropping, just now getting around 40-50Mbps (with a sync of 80/20) mid-day so it is off peak, multi-threaded pushes about 60-70, and this no matter what time day or night, it will never reach maximum speed anymore. No packet loss that I can see, the quality is there, occasionally speeds go back up, but never for long, maybe just for the duration of a test.
VM are advertising average speeds which suggest they have no current congestion issues, the data from that doesnt match with ofcom testing, so something is fishy there.
Does the current ASA regulation allow them to use off peak speeds to skew average speed advertising?
Pretty sure this highlights the issue VM are having at the moment, with seemingly alot of local nodes congested (mine included) and core network issues I can track across multiple connections with matching packet loss, and sudden upshift in average latency in the region of 5-10ms. Sadly I think VM's network will get worse before it gets better.