UK Mobile Broadband Delivers Less Than 25 Percent Of Advertised Speeds

According to a report published by research company Epitiro, the average speed achieved by mobile broadband services across UK is only a fraction of what mobile companies advertise.

The study found that the average mobile broadband speed reaches a mere 0.9mbps based on data collected from over 1.4 million tests from more than 1300 testing agents across UK; Epitero used its own inhouse ISPosure software.

The data was collected from all the broadband providers in the UK including O2, 3, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin Media and Vodafone. Not surprisingly, the average ping time at 150ms was significantly higher than what is deemed acceptable for game playing and roughly three times more than on a normal fixed line broadband service.

Amongst the various information revealed is the fact that the fastest test agents performed on average just below 2mbps, at 1.8mbps. This is arguably less than the 2mbps mentioned in Lord Carters' interim Digital Report as the absolute minimum universal broadband speed.

On average, the average claimed "up to speed" of offers by mobile phone companies is 3.6mbps although the number of "up to" 7.2mbps offers is rising fast. Furthermore, to make things worse, during peak hours, speeds dropped by around a fifth due partly to the fact that networks are heavily congested during this period.

Uploading figures were better than predicted with an average of 270kbps. Epitero also found out that early morning speeds tend to be significantly higher than during day time. No surprise here.

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