More On Broadband Speeds: UK Data

IanFogg | February 22, 2007, 03:16 PM

Recently re-named Thinkbroadband, formerly ADSLGuide, has just published a collation of its UK speed test data. This is a good first step in providing comparison across providers (ISPs), however, this data needs to be treated with a little care:

• Mix of each ISPs' customer base. Some ISPs have a greater proportion of customers on the old flat rate 512Kbps or 2Mbps services than others. Those can't be compared directly with ISPs with a customer base mostly on max 'up to 8Mbps' services.
• Broadband connection technology. Cable, LLU and BT Wholesale-based broadband products are not directly comparable in this way. For example, take Be, mobile operator O2's ISP arm: They offer exclusively ADSL2+ marketed at "up to 20Mbps". Clearly, if the majority of Be customers were to experience just 2Mbps speeds [for example, they don't] that would be poor given their connections are capable of a higher maximum than Zen Internet (who only offer BT Wholesale-based ADSL1 at 'up to 8Mbps').
• Modem connection speeds are ignored. As the impacts of contention -- lower speeds because of insufficient behind the scenes network capacity -- become more important, what would be interesting to track on Thinkbroadband's reports is how closely a user's actual speed is to the maximum that their modem and telephone line supports.
• The tests are partially human fallible Thinkbroadband's tests rely in part on consumers correctly identifying their ISP (although there is automatic detection it is not infallible) and on the consumer succeeding on switching off all other Internet applications while a test runs.

Either way, it is essential for consumers to be able to compare the actual performance of different ISPs broadband packages. Otherwise, consumers will opt for the cheapest package available, lacking the information to justify a higher spend, and the overall ISP market will suffer, as I wrote last autumn in this blog entry: ISPs Are All Prisoners. Their Marketing Dilemma.

Despite all of these caveats, it is still clear from this data that UK ISPs differ extremely widely in their actual performance. Some of the smaller providers do well, many of the well known brands that have entered the tail spin of mass marketing and ever lower broadband prices do poorly here.

Read the thinkbroadband item here.