Comparison site Broadband.co.uk has released its latest anecdotal monthly broadband speed testing results for October 2009. It shows that the average UK broadband download speed for the largest ten ISPs has remained more or less unchanged since September and currently stands at 4.328Mbps.

Cable giant Virgin Media once again retains its position as the fastest broadband ISP for downloads, holding a strong average speed of 7.260Mbps. Meanwhile 2nd place holder O2 ( including Be Broadband ) yet again fell back significantly from 5.535Mbps in September to just 5.019Mbps now (note: in April they had 6.045Mbps).

Top 10 ISPs for Download Speed
1. Virgin Media – 7.260Mbps
2. O2 ( Be Broadband ) – 5.019Mbps
3. Eclipse Internet – 3.899Mbps
4. Sky Broadband – 3.512Mbps
5. TalkTalk – 3.357Mbps
6. Orange – 3.199Mbps
7. BT – 2.920Mbps
8. Tiscali – 2.770Mbps
9. PlusNet – 2.559Mbps
10. AOL – 2.183Mbps

Top 10 ISPs for Upload Speed
1. O2 ( Be Broadband ) - 0.716Mbps
2. Virgin Media - 0.541Mbps
3. TalkTalk - 0.483Mbps
4. Sky Broadband - 0.454Mbps
5. Eclipse Internet - 0.426Mbps
6. Orange - 0.396Mbps
7. BT - 0.372Mbps
8. Tiscali - 0.345Mbps
9. PlusNet - 0.340Mbps
10. AOL - 0.323Mbps

Once again O2 ( Be Broadband ) remains the fastest UK ISP for upload performance on a reasonably stable result of 0.716Mbps (only slightly lower than September) and AOL UK is yet again bottom in both charts. The average upload speed also grew slightly over the month, increasing to 0.465Mbps from 0.441Mbps in September.

One ISP that deserves a special mention is Eclipse Internet (KCOM), which has recently been improving its performance and leapt up several places in both upload and download speed. In particular their September download speed of 3.088Mbps has increased to 3.899Mbps.