The UK Top 8 Fastest Home Broadband ISPs for February 2013

The latest monthly summary of anecdotal consumer broadband ISP speed testing data from Broadband.co.uk has revealed that the average download speed in the United Kingdom slipped from 16.914Mbps in January 2013 to 16.514Mbps now, while the average upload speed jumped to 2.704Mbps (up from 2.387Mbps).

As we’ve come to expect the fastest ISP for internet download speed remains Virgin Media, which secures a healthy lead at 32.094Mbps (down from 33.837Mbps in January). This is largely thanks to the resiliance of Virgin’s well established cable platform in urban areas and on-going efforts to double their customers speeds (here).

However the story for upload performance is quite different and sees BT take the crown from PlusNet to come top with 4.324Mbps (up sharply from 3.507Mbps in January), which is largely fueled by the growing adoption of FTTC based superfast broadband packages. Eclipse Internet also does quite well thanks to FTTC and Sky Broadband are seeing steady gains for the same reason.

Top 8 UK ISPs – Download Speed
1. Virgin Media – 32.094Mbps
2. BT – 16.584Mbps
3. Eclipse Internet – 16.194Mbps
4. PlusNet – 15.010Mbps
5. Sky Broadband – 9.048Mbps
6. O2 (BE Broadband) – 7.811Mbps
7. EE (Orange UK) – 5.797Mbps
8. TalkTalk (Tiscali) – 5.768Mbps

Top 8 UK ISPs – Upload Speed
1. BT – 4.324Mbps
2. PlusNet – 3.997Mbps
3. Virgin Media – 3.109Mbps
4. Eclipse Internet – 3.072Mbps
5. Sky Broadband – 1.457Mbps
6. EE (Orange) – 0.904Mbps
7. O2 (BE Broadband) – 0.829Mbps
8. TalkTalk (Tiscali) – 0.722Mbps

As usual we recommend that readers take anecdotal data like this with a huge pinch of salt. Every home or business is different and performance can be affected by all sorts of issues, many of which are beyond the ISPs ability to control. Similarly the faster speeds from the latest “superfast” technologies can have a disproportionate impact compared with the older and significantly slower copper-based ADSL / ADSL2+ solutions.

We do not consider the above data to be a reliable barometer for individual users but it can be used to highlight other changes in the market. Sadly the table doesn’t include smaller ISPs because they don’t produce enough data for a useful comparison. Meanwhile Ofcom are due to release their next major report on national fixed line broadband ISP speeds before the month is out.