Broadband News

O2 speeds ahead

Friday, 20 June 2008

By Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

Karoo has topped the 8Mb speed category, while O2 and Virgin Media have taken the top spots in the “superfast” and 2Mb categories respectively.

In the UK’s most popular speed category, Karoo (www.Karoo.co.uk) customers received an average of 52.6 per cent of their advertised 8Mb in May, while O2 (www.O2.co.uk) delivered an impressive average of 51.5 per cent of its advertised speeds to customers on its two “superfast” packages, up to 16Mb and up to 20Mb.

In the up to 2Mb category - where speeds are much easier to achieve - Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com) customers enjoyed a whopping 81.9 per cent reliability last month.

O2 - a relative newcomer to the market - only launched its broadband service in October last year but has already crept up the speed league table, also taking second place in the 8Mb category with 44.3 per cent.

Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, said: “It’s surprising to see O2 delivering such good results in the ‘superfast’ category. It’s a lot harder to deliver on speeds of over 16Mb and O2 has both an up to 16Mb package and an up to 20Mb package.

“Its nearest rival in this category last month was cable provider Virgin Media who has traditionally taken the lead in providing fast broadband but it had only 37.9 per cent reliability compared to O2’s 51.5 per cent.

“Even more surprisingly, it also performed far better than Be Broadband (www.BeThere.co.uk), even though they share the same network,” he added.

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