Broadband speeds in the UK have more than doubled in the last four years, UK telecommunications watchdog Ofcom has found.
The regulator said the average residential speed had increased from just 3.6Mbps in 2008, when it first began its speeds research, to 9Mbps in May this year.
Ofcom said the average has been pushed up by the adoption of ‘superfast’ cable packages such as Virgin Media’s ‘up to’ 60Mbps service and BT’s Infinity 2 ‘up to’ 76Mbps offering.
In the last six months, average ‘superfast’ broadband services speeds increased by 25% to 17.9Mbps, Ofcom found.
Adoption increased too, with 8% of residential broadband connections reach speeds of 30Mbps or above have, up from 5% six months previously and 2% in May 2011.
The research found that BT Infinity’s ‘up to’ 76Mbps service delivered the highest upload speeds of all the packages, avareaing 15,6Mbps. O2/Be’s ‘up to’ 20/24 Mbps provided the fastest avarage upload speed out of the ADSL2+ packages at 1.1Mbps.
ADSL broadband services, which deliver broadband down copper wires from a telephone exchange, increased by 10% from 5.9Mbps thanks to network upgrades.
Interesting Links
Recent research by analyst firm IDC indicated that Internet-generated broadband traffic will rise 50% year on year by 2015, and that increased broadband will ultimately result in more widespread adoption of online applications.
