Ofcom today published its sixth report of UK broadband speeds which reveals that UK consumers are achieving 22 per cent faster broadband speeds at home than they were 12 months ago.
In November 2011, the average actual UK residential broadband speed was 7.6Mbit/s, compared with 6.2Mbit/s in November/December 2010, and 6.8Mbit/s in May 2011.
This increase was mainly as a result of consumers moving onto higher speed packages. In November 2011, for the first time more than half (58 per cent) of UK residential broadband connections had a headline, or advertised speed of above 10Mbit/s, up from 48 per cent in May 2011.
However, more than 4 in 10 broadband consumers remain on packages with speeds of 10Mbit/s or less even though many of them would be able to get a higher speed at little or no extra cost if they switched package or provider.
The increase in actual average speeds is to be welcomed, but consumers need to be aware that the speed you can get depends very much on your location and the technologies available a at your local exchange and how far from it you are.
Some consumers in our larger towns and cities have seen new technologies and/or greater capacity installed which greatly increases their speed while many others in outlying areas may be getting worse – with the same old technology and more demand, or ‘contention’ on their shared local connections.
The full news release can be found here.