Comparison site Broadband.co.uk has released its latest anecdotal monthly broadband speed testing results for the past month of October 2010, which saw the average UK internet download speed rise ever so slightly from 4.942Mbps (Megabits per second) in the previous month to 5.043Mbps now.

Cable giant Virgin Media UK continued to be the fastest broadband provider for download speeds and even increased its average performance from 9.053Mbps in September to 9.338Mbps now. Admittedly Virgin has tipped the scales at over 10Mbps in the past (July 2010) and is thus busy working its way back up again.

Popular ISP O2 ( Be Broadband ) stayed untouched in 2nd place with an increased speed of 5.726Mbps, which represents a good improvement over September's 5.385Mbps. Both O2 and Be Broadband share the same network and continue to be the fastest of all the DSL providers.

Top ISPs for Download Speed
1. Virgin Media – 9.338Mbps
2. O2 ( Be Broadband ) – 5.726Mbps
3. Eclipse Internet – 4.945Mbps
4. Sky Broadband – 3.991Mbps
5. BT – 3.862Mbps
6. TalkTalk ( Tiscali ) – 3.699Mbps
7. PlusNet – 3.087Mbps
8. Orange – 2.953Mbps
9. AOL – 2.518Mbps

Top ISPs for Upload Speed
1. O2 ( Be Broadband ) - 0.786Mbps
2. Virgin Media - 0.745Mbps
3. BT - 0.613Mbps
4. Sky Broadband - 0.528Mbps
5. Eclipse Internet - 0.505Mbps
6. TalkTalk ( Tiscali ) - 0.497Mbps
7. Orange - 0.402Mbps
8. PlusNet - 0.354Mbps
9. AOL - 0.347Mbps

The overall average UK upload speed has continued to grow, shifting from 0.551Mbps in September to 0.589Mbps now. O2 ( Be Broadband ) continues to lead here with a stable average of 0.786Mbps, but September's huge FREE upload speed boost by Virgin Media (details) has seen its 2nd place performance rocket from 0.674Mbps in September to 0.745Mbps now!

We expect Virgin to take the crown in due course (ED: Actually, we thought they would have done it this time), although it's worth noting that BT also improved its upload speed over the same time period from an average of 0.546Mbps to 0.613Mbps now.

Elsewhere PlusNet UK's huge new TV advertising push last month has not impacted its download performance, in fact it saw a rise from 2.741Mbps to 3.087Mbps. That's surprising given the extra demand being placed upon their network.