Who's the fastest broadband ISP? New speed test results tell all…

A report by consumer group, Which? earlier this year found a 'huge' gap between publicised broadband speeds and what most users actually received, with the average speed 'enjoyed' by customers on 8Mb packages being as low as 2.7Mb.

> Virgin Media scores gold in 'welter weight' and 'heavy weight' speed test categories
> Sky scores gold in 'cruiser weight category'
> Supanet get the wooden spoon in 'welter weight'

Michael Phillips, product director at BroadbandChoices.co.uk, said: 'Connections get degraded the further away they are from the BT exchange. Factors like this and poor quality wiring significantly degrade broadband connections and reduce the available speed. It's simply not possible for every customer to get the advertised speed. Our speed tests show that, on average, customers only receive 35 per cent of the promised speed.1'

BroadbandChoices.co.uk has been continuously monitoring the average speed that ISPs are delivering to their customers since August 2007. Over that period they have collated over 375,000 individual test results across over 8,000 different internet users.

Winners have been awarded a gold, silver or bronze rating in three bandwidth categories:

* Welter Weight – all providers offering up to 2Mb services;
* Cruiser Weight – all providers offering up to 8Mb services (excluding welter weights); and
* Heavy Weight – any providers offering up to 16Mb, 20Mb or 24Mb services.

The results concluded that Sky was the broadband supplier that gave the most consistent speeds to its customers during 2007 across all three weight categories. Sky received a gold medal in the cruiser weight category(2) , a silver in the welter weight (3) and a bronze in the heavy weight category (4) . Close behind Sky, Virgin Media received two gold medals in the welter weight and the heavy weight categories (5).

TalkTalk did not appear anywhere near the top of the results, having only delivered an average speed of 2.2Mb for its 8Mb package in the cruiser weight division (6) ; while the wooden spoon was awarded to Supanet in the Cruiser weight division.

Michael Phillips, comments, 'None of our gold medallists actually delivered anywhere near their promised speeds. This really does call for providers to be more honest about the kind of speeds customers can realistically expect to receive, rather than using flashy advertising focused on ever-increasing ‘top speeds''.

BroadbandChoices.co.uk speed test results are based on 375,000 tests, between August 2007 and December 2007. Speeds are based on the median test results, i.e. the most frequently occurring results.

BroadbandChoices.co.uk's speed tester results demonstrate that Sky scored an average of 3.1Mbps in the 'Cruiser' 8Mbps category, just beating Madasafish which scored 2.7Mbps.

In the 2Mbps 'Welter' category Sky scored an average of 1.6Mbps just being piped to the post by Virgin Media which beat it with 1.7Mbps.

In the 16-24Mbps category, Sky achieved an average speed of 4.7Mbps being beaten by both Be (5.2Mbps) and Virgin (7.3Mbps)

Virgin scored an average speed of 1.7Mbps in its 8Mbps package beating Sky which scored 1.6Mbps. Virgin scored 7.3 in its 16-24Mbps package beating Be with 5.2Mbps.

TalkTalk came in 10 out of 14 with its 8Mbps package, with 2.2Mbps average speeds.

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e-Government National Awards winners to be announced 22nd January 2008
Winners from among the 81 finalists (detailed at this link) in this year's e-Government National Awards 2007 will be announced at a Ministerial level black tie dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in London on 22nd January 2008. 11 Awards categories will recognise this year's "best of the best" strategies, achievements, teams and individuals in UK public sector web, ICT & e-Government services. The judging panel was headed by Government Chief Information Officer John Suffolk (based at Cabinet Office).

Platinum sponsor is KPMG.
Also sponsors are O2, the Planning Portal and Atos Origin.

The Awards are supported by the Government Chief Information Officer (Cabinet Office), the Office of Government Commerce, the Society of Information Technology Management (Socitm), and SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers).