Comparison site Broadband.co.uk has released its latest anecdotal monthly broadband speed testing results for May 2010. It shows that the average UK download speed for the largest nine ISPs has dropped slightly from a peak of 4.958Mbps in April to 4.843Mbps now.

As usual Virgin Media UK, with its strong cable broadband network, remains top of the pack for download speeds with a result of 8.744Mbps; significantly down on April's result of 9.373Mbps. O2 ( Be Broadband ) also stands out with a largely unchanged result of 5.757Mbps, while the rest continue to languish in the 3-4Mbps region.

Top 9 ISPs for Download Speed
1. Virgin Media – 8.744Mbps
2. O2 ( Be Broadband ) – 5.757Mbps
3. Orange – 3.879Mbps
4. Sky Broadband – 3.844Mbps
5. TalkTalk ( Tiscali ) – 3.531Mbps
6. BT – 3.333Mbps
7. PlusNet – 3.179Mbps
8. Eclipse Internet – 3.018Mbps
9. AOL – 2.444Mbps

Top 9 ISPs for Upload Speed
1. O2 ( Be Broadband ) - 0.746Mbps
2. Virgin Media - 0.575Mbps
3. Sky Broadband - 0.477Mbps
4. Orange - 0.458Mbps
5. TalkTalk ( Tiscali ) - 0.444Mbps
6. Eclipse Internet - 0.426Mbps
7. BT - 0.410Mbps
8. AOL - 0.341Mbps
9. PlusNet - 0.336Mbps

The overall average UK upload speed performance once again remains practically stagnant at 0.484Mbps. However for the first time AOL UK does not record the slowest upload performance and is replaced by PlusNet in the bottom dwellers position.

We note from the full results that, on average, the big UK ISPs tend to be approximately 15-30% faster during the low overnight hours from midnight to 8am than in the busy evening periods when their networks are under the most strain. Only Sky Broadband and O2 ( Be Broadband ) appear to have a fairly stable level of performance regardless of time.