Posted: 04th Jan, 2012 By: MarkJ

The latest anecdotal monthly consumer broadband ISP speed testing results from
Broadband.co.uk, which covers the December 2011 period, have shown a clear decline in the
average UK internet download speed from 7.935Mbps in November 2011 to
7.578Mbps now. The
average upload rate has, over the same period, also fallen slightly from 1.261Mbps to
1.160Mbps.
Cable giant Virgin Media UK, which showed little change over the previous month, continues to be the
fastest overall ISP for both download (
14.242Mbps) and upload (
2.229Mbps) performance.
Top 9 UK ISPs for Download Speed - December 2011
1. Virgin Media – 14.242Mbps
2. Eclipse Internet – 10.591Mbps
3. BT – 7.638Mbps
4. O2 ( Be Broadband ) – 5.673Mbps
5. AOL – 4.672Mbps
6. TalkTalk (Tiscali) – 4.651Mbps
7. PlusNet – 4.606Mbps
8. Sky Broadband – 4.244Mbps
9. Orange – 3.787Mbps
Top 9 UK ISPs for Upload Speed - December 2011
1. Virgin Media - 2.229Mbps
2. Eclipse Internet - 1.883Mbps
3. BT - 1.303Mbps
4. O2 ( Be Broadband ) - 0.893Mbps
5. TalkTalk (Tiscali) - 0.582Mbps
6. Sky Broadband - 0.582Mbps
7. Orange - 0.563Mbps
8. PlusNet - 0.449Mbps
9. AOL - 0.433Mbps
We couldn't spot any significant individual ISP changes, most providers lost a bit of speed and a few made small gains. It's perhaps worth taking a moment to reflect upon how these statistics have changed over the past 12 months. Back in
December 2010 (
here) the overall UK average download speed was just
5.685Mbps and uploads stood at
0.673Mbps.
Performance has risen sharply over the past year. Some, such as Virgin Media (10.913Mbps in Dec 2010), BT (4.778Mbps in Dec 2010) and Eclipse Internet (5.528Mbps in Dec 2010), made sharper gains than others. Eclipse stands out the most for practically
doubling its speed. The rest showed small or moderate gains but nothing outstanding.
As you might expect the sharpest rises have come from ISPs that launched a new generation of superfast broadband services last year, although curiously TalkTalk UK, despite having its own superfast fibre add-on, is only about +0.7Mbps higher than it was in December 2010 (3.953Mbps). This suggests that either uptake or performance among TalkTalk subscribers might not be as strong.
As usual readers should take anecdotal data like this with a big pinch of salt. Every home is different and performance can be affected by all sorts of things from poor home wiring to router choice. We do not consider the above to be a reliable barometer for individual users but it does help to reflect overall shifts in market performance.