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Big six need to do more
(04-12-07) - Virgin Media has been knocked back off the top spot by Tesco Broadband, with its average reliability falling two per cent according to the latest BroadbandChoices.co.uk Speed Tester results.
The results of over 100,000 speed tests in October pushed the cable company to the top of the pack as customers enjoyed an average of 52.1 per cent of their advertised speed, ahead of Tesco’s (www.Tesco.net) 50 per cent for that month.
However, these figures have now been reversed, as Tesco leads with 52.7 per cent, ahead of Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com) with 50.3 per cent reliability.
Tiscali Broadband (www.Tiscali.co.uk) and AOL (www.AOL.co.uk) held onto their October positions in third and fourth place, with customers enjoying 49.2 per cent and 48 per cent of their advertised speeds respectively.
Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, said: “Despite its fall by 1.8 per cent this month, Virgin Media still out-performs the vast majority of ADSL providers. Managing to deliver an average of more than 50 per cent advertised speed is comparatively very good,” he said.
“However, this figure is largely propped up by Virgin Media’s slower offerings - its more ambitious connections at up to 20Mb do not fare as well. And customers also need to be aware of the company’s traffic management policies which can drastically reduce speeds at peak times.”
BT Broadband (www.BT.com) put in a disappointing performance, dropping two places to number 10 this month, with customers enjoying an average of only 33.5 per cent of their advertised speed.
Mr Phillips said: “This isn’t what people expect from the country’s incumbent operator and biggest ISP. However, BT is focusing its efforts on the rollout of its 21 Century Network, which will begin in 2008, and will significantly increase speed for customers - pushing them up to a top speed of 24Mb.
“Most of the ‘big six’ providers - who control 94 per cent of the market – are found towards the top of the table,” said Mr Phillips, “Virgin Media, Tiscali and Carphone Warehouse owned AOL consistently feature in the top five. This month Sky Broadband (www.Sky.com) - who saw the year’s fastest growth - is in sixth place with 40.4 per cent, and Orange (www.Orange.co.uk) is in eighth place with 38.6 per cent.”
But BT and TalkTalk (www.TalkTalk.co.uk) need to do more to improve their averages. “As Carphone Warehouse’s other ISP, and pioneer of ‘free broadband’, TalkTalk is performing poorly, with customers getting an average of only 30.1 per cent of their average speed,” concluded Mr Phillips.
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