Fastest Broadband ISP Award Given to Virgin Media and Vodafone UK
The annual Broadband Genie 2018 survey has today announced that Virgin Media have yet again been named as the fastest “widely-available” broadband provider in the UK for download speed (71.5Mbps), while Vodafone took the same award for upload speed (10.1Mbps).
Generally Virgin’s download performance was found to be three times faster than its nearest challenger, while for upload speeds the providers were much closer with just 4.9Mbps separating the United Kingdom’s fastest and slowest performers. Sadly Sky Broadband and TalkTalk were ranked lowest for both categories.
Apparently the awards stem from the result of a collaboration between Broadband Genie and BroadbandUK, which collected 12,908 UK speed test results between 1st July to 31st December 2018. Curiously this year the comparison site won’t be announcing the winners of their other award categories (Best Customer Care, Best Provider etc.) at the same time and these will instead “follow in the coming months.”
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Download speed results:
| Provider | Mbps |
| Virgin Media | 71.5 |
| Vodafone | 24.9 |
| EE | 23.5 |
| BT | 22.3 |
| Plusnet | 20.6 |
| TalkTalk | 17.2 |
| Sky Broadband | 17.1 |
Uploading speed results:
| Provider | Mbps |
| Vodafone | 10.1 |
| Virgin Media | 7.7 |
| EE | 6.8 |
| BT | 6.6 |
| Plusnet | 5.7 |
| TalkTalk | 5.3 |
| Sky Broadband | 5.2 |
The small sample size above means that this survey was only able to cover the biggest broadband providers, which typically ignores smaller ISPs that so often deliver very good service quality and support. Another caveat stems from using speedtests to rank ISPs, which can be a problem if one provider has more customers on a slower package than others. In other words, such results should always be taken with a pinch of salt.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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‘in other words, such results should always be taken with a pinch of salt’.
pointless ‘news’ then. whats the point in writing this piece?
make it a salt mine rather than just a pinch.
You’re on an information site that is dedicated toward covering all things broadband and telecoms related, both for the industry and consumers alike. We’ve worked this way for 20 years. If something doesn’t interest you then just skip it.
Dunno about articles full of salt but someone is certainly a bit salty over them ; )
Looks like someone just went past the cooling off period on a new 18mth Sky/TT contract ;D
Better luck next year XD
Keep up the good work Mark. I very much enjoy reading all the content you put on the site.
Keep up the great work you put out man, i love it, ignore the naive trolls
@FOAW maybe he’s outside a VM coverage area as well
Great article cheers Mark
Virgin have stopped being a BT reseller, so their speed results will improve, unlike all the other ISPs who are tied to the copper. They are also laying lots of new fibre which will mean their network is futureproofed. So for once these parasitic comparison sites may have got it right.
Very difficult job to get decent data, when most tests are done on wifi at the far range of its signal.