Top 9 UK Fastest Broadband ISPs by Speed for May 2012

According to the latest monthly anecdotal consumer broadband ISP speed testing data from Broadband.co.uk, which covers the month of April 2012, the average internet download speed in the UK has continued to climb from 14.12Mbps (Megabits per second) in April 2012 to 15,286Mbps now.

The national average upload speed has also increased again from 1.904Mbps to 2.291Mbps over the same period. Most of these rises continue to come from the increasing uptake of superfast broadband services by Virgin Media, BT and Eclipse Internet. As more ISPs launch similar services then the upward trend will grow, but remove their disproportionate impact and you’re still left with a situation where most ISPs deliver woeful averages of 5-7Mbps.

Otherwise there’s no change at the top from last month. Cable operator Virgin Media remains the fastest broadband ISP for download performance, by a significant margin, and BT holds the top spot for upload speed. The rest trail a long way behind.

Top 9 UK ISPs – Download Speed (Megabits/sec)
1. Virgin Media – 24.338Mbps
2. BT – 14.557Mbps
3. Eclipse Internet – 12.941Mbps
4. PlusNet – 6.595Mbps
5. O2 (BE Broadband) – 6.437Mbps
6. Sky Broadband – 5.811Mbps
7. TalkTalk / Tiscali – 5.259Mbps
8. Orange UK – 4.469Mbps
9. AOL – 4.282Mbps

Top 9 UK ISPs – Upload Speed (Megabits/sec)
1. BT – 3.745Mbps
2. Virgin Media – 2.663Mbps
3. Eclipse Internet – 2.483Mbps
4. O2 (BE Broadband) – 0.895Mbps
5. Sky Broadband – 0.649Mbps
6. PlusNet – 0.637Mbps
7. AOL – 0.608Mbps
8. Orange UK – 0.588Mbps
9. TalkTalk / Tiscali – 0.570Mbps

Readers should take anecdotal data like this with a huge pinch of salt. Every home is different and performance can be affected by all sorts of things, most of which are beyond the ISPs control. We do not consider the above table to be a reliable barometer for individual users but it can help to reflect overall market changes.