Comparison site Broadband.co.uk has released its latest anecdotal monthly broadband speed testing results for May 2009. It shows that the average UK broadband download speed has now reached 4.248Mbps, which is up from 4.137Mbps in April. The average upload speed also saw a tiny increase to 0.431Mbps.

Unsurprisingly Virgin Media retains its crown as the fastest broadband ISP for downloads, with an average speed of 5.874Mbps; Rival O2 ( including Be Broadband ) came a very close second on 5.778Mbps. Interestingly both results are a lot slower than April where Virgin got 6.190Mbps and O2 / Be Broadband had 6.045Mbps.

Top 10 ISPs for Download Speed
1. Virgin Media - 5.874Mbps
2. O2 ( Be Broadband ) - 5.778Mbps
3. TalkTalk - 3.705Mbps
4. Sky Broadband - 3.525Mbps
5. Orange - 3.136Mbps
6. PlusNet - 3.167Mbps
7. Tiscali - 2.927Mbps
8. BT - 2.781Mbps
9. Eclipse Internet - 2.668Mbps
10. AOL - 2.276Mbps

Top 10 ISPs for Upload Speed
1. O2 ( Be Broadband ) - 0.758Mbps
2. TalkTalk - 0.491Mbps
3. Virgin Media - 0.451Mbps
4. Sky Broadband - 0.405Mbps
5. Orange - 0.404Mbps
6. Eclipse Internet - 0.401Mbps
7. Tiscali - 0.350Mbps
8. PlusNet - 0.349Mbps
9. BT - 0.328Mbps
10. AOL - 0.314Mbps

Happily O2 ( Be Broadband ) remains the fastest UK ISP for upload performance on a very impressive 0.758Mbps. Interestingly Virgin Media, which use to be in 2nd place for uploads, has now been dethroned by TalkTalk . That's a very promising sign given TalkTalk's otherwise budget level pricing.

We expect to see further increases in the average download speed as faster broadband products (up to 24Mbps ADSL2+ etc.) begin to launch throughout the year.