Broadband getting faster says comparison site

The average broadband speed for UK internet users has risen in the past year, according to Broadband.co.uk.

According to the broadband comparison site the average broadband speed for UK households has grown to 4.137Mbits/sec compared to 3.2Mbits/sec in April 2008.

However, broadband information site Think Broadband has said the results have “serious flaws”.

Broadband.co.uk calculated its speeds from thousands of broadband speed tests taken on its site during April 2009.

It said: “Unlike other speed test services we record the internet service provider (ISP) by IP address, making our ISP recording very accurate rather than relying on self-selection.”

However, Andrew Ferguson, editor of Think Broadband, said the results were misleading.

“Not sure I would agree totally with their conclusion, as on looking at the results it is only for the hours 8am to 6pm,” he said.

“Also one serious flaw with their speed tester: it measures a peak speed rather than a more accurate method, which is to measure to time taken to download a set amount of data.”

Mr Ferguson said Think Broadband’s speed testers, which looked at the variation in speeds across the UK regions had given a national average of 3.2Mbits/sec in mid 2008, rising to 3.6Mbits/sec by the end of 2008.

He also pointed out that Broadband.co.uk’s results, showing that Virgin retained their lead as the UK's fastest broadband provider for the seventh month in a row with O2 coming a close second, didn’t give a clear indication.

“Generally speaking, one expects Be/O2, Sky and Virgin Media to be averaging higher speeds as they sell higher speeds. What is missing from their data is any analysis of the spread of results, eg Virgin Media may be skewed by a small number of people doing lots of tests with a 50Mbits/sec service,” he said.