Average broadband speeds have increased significantly in the UK

Average broadband speeds have increased significantly in the UK.

An annual survey by UK communications watchdog Ofcom revealed that fixed-line download speeds rose by 28% to 46.2 megabits per second in the year to November 2017, while upload speeds rose by 44% to 6.2 Mbps.

The typical British household consumed 190 gigabytes of data a month. The main driver of this increase was increased use of streaming services like Netflix.

The data was collected using speed-testing boxes at about 4,700 volunteers’ properties.

The fastest download speeds were achieved by Virgin Media’s ‘up to 200 Mbit/s’ cable package. The package averaged 193.6 Mbit/s over a 24-hour period, and 184.3 Mbit/s during the 8pm-10pm peak period.

Superfast broadband is available to most UK premises, however, there are still a lot of broadband users that haven’t upgraded yet.

Ofcom said:

“Many households could receive better broadband speeds by upgrading their package, sometimes at no greater cost. Although superfast broadband is available to 93% of UK premises, around two in five UK broadband households still subscribed to a standard “ADSL” service in November 2017.”

Discrepancy in speed between homes in urban areas and those in rural areas

Ofcom found that 59% of connections in urban homes achieved average speeds of more than 30 Mbps over the 20:00-22:00 peak-time period. However, only 23% of connections in rural homes reached speeds of more than 30 Mbps over the same period – just over half were under 10 Mbps.

Speed by country

England had the fastest speeds and Wales had the slowest.

Average broadband speed:

• England : 47.8 Mbps
• Scotland: 43.6 Mbps
• Northern Ireland: 39.2 Mbps
• Wales: 33.4 Mbps