Which broadband has the fastest upload speeds?

Will T, via email

Yeah, broadband providers usually give less space to information about their packages' upload speeds than they do to download speeds.

Luckily though, the majority do let you know what uploads you can expect. Here's an overview...

What upload speed does each provider offer?

The above info is correct at the time of writing, but do be aware that providers' official upload speeds can change, even when download speeds don't.

So, the best upload speeds are, unsurprisingly, on the top-end packages. 21Mb is the maximum you can get for uploads from a major national provider (see Virgin Media), and that's more than plenty for most of us. If an average speed 63Mb fibre package is a bit too intensive for your downloads - or if it's a bit over your budget - your next best bets would be BT, EE, Sky, or TalkTalk for upload speed.

Virgin Media's upload speeds aren't bad on most of its packages either… but bear in mind they're subject to traffic management. Read more about traffic management here.

Some faster upload speeds may well be available from smaller or more local providers (Gigaclear, for example), including FTTP (fibre-to-the-premises) ones that give you a fully fibre connection. You won't find them everywhere, however, and they can be pretty costly.

It's worth mentioning that most of those above - with the exception of Virgin Media - all use the Openreach network to deliver their broadband. So if two providers say they offer similar but slightly different speeds (EE's package with an average download speed of 36Mb, and TalkTalk's package with an average speed of 35Mb, for instance), you'll probably get near enough identical speeds on either one, since they use the same lines. You won't find much difference in speed in your home on any of the average speed 63Mb packages, either.

Still, we'll tell you what the 'up to' upload and downloads speeds are when you click on a package with our comparison tool. And when you go through to sign up, the provider will give you a more accurate idea of what speeds to expect for your postcode - both upstream and downstream.

By the way, if you need fast uploads for your business, take a look at business broadband. You're more likely to find symmetrical up and down speeds there, or at least much speedier uploads - up to 1Gb on some packages, in fact.

Why is upload speed so much lower than download speed?

Well, the majority of what we do on the internet involves downloading information rather than uploading it.

You send information via the 'upstream' when you post photos and videos, connect to a remote network or VPN, host a stream, hold a video call, play games online, and generally just click on stuff - but you use the 'downstream' for… pretty much everything else.

That includes accessing websites, scrolling through social media, downloading files, watching videos, listening to music and podcasts, using games and apps, and so on. All those things require decently speedy and reliable download speeds, especially if lots of devices in your home are connected to the internet at once.

So, most of your broadband's bandwidth is allocated to the downstream, since it requires more data on the whole.

How can I improve my upload speed?

There are plenty of things you can do to improve your broadband speed - both upload and download. Take a look at our full guide: