Brit broadband download speeds are still below the global average, hoots Ofcom

Um, are we supposed to feel proud about this?

Wow. Pat yourself on the back, Blighty. The average download speed for fixed-line broadband in the UK almost surpassed the global average of 57.9Mbps, comms regulator Ofcom revealed today.

Brit broadband download speeds collectively rose by 18 per cent over the last year to hit an average of 54.2Mbps, it noted.

Upload speeds, which have become "increasingly important" to UK workers looking to punch their timecards while in their pyjamas, are also up 15 per cent to 7.2Mbps. Both download and upload speeds have more than doubled in the past five years.

One-time DVD-snailmailer Netflix – which became a synecdoche for streaming services while our backs were turned – was used by the Brit regulator to measure broadband connections' performance while creaking under the weight of the capacity-hungry American streamer.

To get some insight on the UK's broadband issues, it commissioned tests from SamKnows that hooked up 4,918 volunteers to a monitoring unit connected to their router during November – and extrapolated data from that.

The fastest speeds recorded in the research were from from Virgin Media's VIVID 350 cable package, which Ofcom said hit average peak time speeds of 360.2Mbps. BT's 300Mbps full-fibre package was second fastest, with an average peak time (8pm-10pm) speed of 300.6Mbps.

Ofcom used the research as yet another opportunity to try to crowbar people out of the copper plumbing and shove them into faster broadband services – packages for which it noted were often the same price or cheaper than hooking up to Cu ducts.

The government's National Infrastructure Commission has called for full-fibre broadband to be deployed around the UK by 2033, and to be made available to 15 million Brits' homes by 2025.

The regulator has a speed checker here if you'd like to check your own connection.

Summary of average download speeds of all ISP packages

Ofcom has also provided a handy guide to average maximum, 24-hour, peak-time and minimum download speeds, by ISP package over 2018 – which we've reproduced in the table below.

	Maximum	24 hours	8pm-10pm	Minimum
BT ADSL2+	10.0-12.5Mbps	9.7-12.1Mbps	9.7-12.1Mbps	8.6-10.8Mbps
Plusnet ADSL2+	11.0-13.4Mbps	10.7-13.0Mbps	10.6-12.9Mbps	9.6-11.7Mbps
Sky ADSL2+	11.1-13.2Mbps	10.8-12.8Mbps	10.7-12.7Mbps	9.4-11.3Mbps
TalkTalk ADSL2+	9.1-11.3Mbps	8.9-11.1Mbps	8.8-11.0Mbps	8.1-10.1Mbps
BT 36Mbps FTTC	27.6-30.2Mbps	26.6-29.2Mbps	26.5-29.0Mbps	23.7-26.6Mbps
EE 36Mbps FTTC	33.2-35.5Mbps	32.5-34.8Mbps	32.2-34.5Mbps	29.0-31.7Mbps
Plusnet 36Mbps FTTC	32.4-34.2Mbps	31.4-33.1Mbps	31.0-32.8Mbps	28.7-30.7Mbps
Sky 36Mbps FTTC	33.1-34.9Mbps	32.3-34.2Mbps	32.0-34.0Mbps	29.0-31.1Mbps
TalkTalk 36Mbps FTTC	32.3-34.2Mbps	31.6-33.6Mbps	31.4-33.4Mbps	29.0-31.2Mbps
BT 50Mbps FTTC	46.6-48.2Mbps	45.6-47.2Mbps	45.2-46.9Mbps	41.8-44.0Mbps
Virgin Media 54Mbps cable	54.8-54.9Mbps	54.0-54.5Mbps	53.5-54.3Mbps	50.0-51.5Mbps
BT 67Mbps FTTC	63.3-65.5Mbps	62.4-64.6Mbps	62.1-64.3Mbps	58.3-60.7Mbps
BT 67Mbps FTTP	73.4-74.8Mbps	73.1-74.4Mbps	72.9-74.2Mbps	71.6-73.2Mbps
EE 67Mbps FTTC	61.3-66.2Mbps	60.0-64.9Mbps	59.4-64.5Mbps	54.5-59.8Mbps
Plusnet 66Mbps FTTC	58.9-62.3Mbps	58.0-61.4Mbps	57.6-61.0Mbps	53.9-57.3Mbps
Sky 63Mbps FTTC	57.5-62.2Mbps	56.3-61.0Mbps	55.9-60.7Mbps	51.1-55.9Mbps
TalkTalk 63Mbps FTTC	62.0-65.6Mbps	61.0-64.5Mbps	60.5-64.1Mbps	55.6-59.4Mbps
KCOM 75Mbps FTTP	73.4-76.1Mbps	72.7-75.4Mbps	72.5-75.3Mbps	69.8-73.3Mbps
Virgin Media 108Mbps cable	108.1-109.5Mbps	106.0-107.9Mbps	105-107.3Mbps	96.7-101.4Mbps
BT 145Mbps FTTP	148.6-150.3Mbps	145.5-148.1Mbps	145-148.0Mbps	137.9-142.5Mbps
Virgin Media 213Mbps cable	214.4-217.9Mbps	205.5-210.3Mbps	201.1-207.0Mbps	177.7-187.1Mbps
BT 300Mbps FTTP	306.7-309.9Mbps	300.5-304.1Mbps	298.0-303.2Mbps	278.7-286.3Mbps
Virgin Media 362Mbps cable	381.4-383.8Mbps	361.8-368.2Mbps	356.0-364.3Mbps	295.7-312.1Mbps

Source: Ofcom, using data provided by SamKnows.

Country mice

At 44 per cent, the proportion of lines receiving an average peak-time download speeds greater than 30Mbps was lower in rural areas of the UK than in urban areas (61 per cent). Only 13 per cent of urban lines suffered a peak-time speed of under 10Mbps, while one in three (33 per cent) in rural areas could not achieve 10Mbps between 8pm and 10pm. ®