Comparison site Broadband.co.uk has released its latest anecdotal monthly consumer broadband ISP speed testing results for the past month of January 2011, which saw the average UK internet download speed remain almost unchanged from the previous month at 5.691Mbps. Meanwhile the average upload speed shot up again, this time from 0.673Mbps in December 2010 to 0.728Mbps now.

Cable operator Virgin Media UK remains the fastest broadband ISP for download speeds, which jumped from 10.913Mbps last month to a new record of 11.193Mbps now. Similarly they also topped the charts for upload speeds, going from 0.994Mbps last month to an impressive 1.241Mbps now. It's unlikely that any of the DSL (ADSL) providers will be able to catch up.

Top UK ISPs for Download Speed
1. Virgin Media – 11.193Mbps
2. Eclipse Internet – 5.967Mbps
3. O2 ( Be Broadband ) – 5.578Mbps
4. BT – 4.381Mbps
5. TalkTalk (Tiscali) – 3.959Mbps
6. Sky Broadband – 3.884Mbps
7. PlusNet – 3.473Mbps
8. Orange – 3.392Mbps
9. AOL – 2.640Mbps

Top UK ISPs for Upload Speed
1. Virgin Media - 1.241Mbps
2. O2 ( Be Broadband ) - 0.755Mbps
3. Eclipse Internet - 0.712Mbps
4. BT - 0.697Mbps
5. Sky Broadband - 0.506Mbps
6. TalkTalk ( Tiscali ) - 0.506Mbps
7. PlusNet - 0.488Mbps
8. Orange - 0.415Mbps
9. AOL - 0.384Mbps

With Virgin Media having secured the top spots for some time to come the new battle has instead turned to 2nd place, where Eclipse Internet has continued to improve and is now even able to challenge O2 ( Be Broadband ) for 2nd place in upload speeds.

Speaking of broadband speeds, Ofcom is expected to release its updated analysis of UK ISP performance this month.