Virgin Tops Ofcom Broadband Chart With 84 Percent Claimed Speed Achieved

Virgin Media was the winner by a wide margin of Ofcom's latest report on the state of broadband in the UK although the lowest speed the ISP offers was 25 percent higher than the rest of the field.

"Over 60 million separate service performance tests were carried out in over 1600 homes between November 2008 and April 2009" according to Ofcom and Virgin Media average speed was 8.4mbps.

Second placed O2 broadband - which also incorporates Be Broadband - reached 4.6mbps on average, a 45 percent reduction compared to Virgin Media's average. Virgin Media was also the ISP whose average speed was nearest to the advertised one (84 percent on average).

In comparison, other copper-based ADSL services reached a maximum of 57 percent with some hovering around 40 percent. Interestingly, Tiscali and AOL, two of the worse culprits in the survey, are owned by Carphone Warehouse.

The data was compiled by Samknows for Telecoms regulator Ofcom. Samknows is also partnering with Virgin Media to deliver a more accurate assessment of its high speed 50mbps broadband service.

A spokesperson for Virgin Media said that "It's what customers get, not what their ISP claims, that counts. Today's report emphatically demonstrates that the ‘up to’ marketing claims of most copper-based broadband providers are not to be trusted, with most major ISPs delivering less than half of what they promise."