Comparison site Broadband.co.uk has released its latest anecdotal monthly broadband speed testing results for January 2010. It shows that the average UK download speed for the largest ten ISPs has dropped since December 2009 (4.478Mbps) and now stands at 4.275Mbps.

Cable giant Virgin Media retained its position as the fastest broadband ISP for downloads, raising its average speed from 7.426Mbps in December to 7.651Mbps in January. Second place holder O2 ( including Be Broadband ) once again saw no real change, while third place TalkTalk managed to go from 3.418Mbps to 3.628Mbps over the same period.

Top 10 ISPs for Download Speed
1. Virgin Media – 7.651Mbps
2. O2 ( Be Broadband ) – 5.113Mbps
3. TalkTalk – 3.628Mbps
4. Sky Broadband – 3.336Mbps
5. Eclipse Internet – 3.106Mbps
6. Orange – 3.055Mbps
7. BT – 2.982Mbps
8. Tiscali – 2.788Mbps
9. PlusNet – 2.732Mbps
10. AOL – 2.131Mbps

Top 10 ISPs for Upload Speed
1. O2 ( Be Broadband ) - 0.716Mbps
2. Virgin Media - 0.588Mbps
3. TalkTalk - 0.487Mbps
4. Sky Broadband - 0.455Mbps
5. Orange - 0.392Mbps
6. Eclipse Internet - 0.386Mbps
7. BT - 0.367Mbps
8. PlusNet - 0.344Mbps
9. Tiscali - 0.334Mbps
10. AOL - 0.326Mbps

ISP O2 UK ( Be Broadband ) remains the fastest UK ISP for upload performance, though its average speed dropped from 0.753Mbps to 0.716Mbps. Meanwhile AOL UK is, as always, bottom of both charts. The average upload speed has remained almost static for several months and currently stands at 0.465Mbps.

It will be interesting to see what February's results bring; Tiscali re-branded under TalkTalk's banner last month and should no longer be treated as a separate entity. This might very well drag TalkTalk’s average performance down and also open the door to a new ISP taking its place.