Virgin Media's 50Mbps Package Fastest with 36Mbps Ofcom

A freshly carried out research by the telecommunications regulator of the United Kingdom, Ofcom, which revealed that broadband providers were routinely overstating broadband connection speeds, while rarely delivering anything near the capabilities advertised.

According to the regulator the up to 10Mbps and up to 20Mbps cable broadband services of Virgin Media, the leading cable broadband provider operating in the United Kingdom were offering double the average DSL download speeds, while the up to 50Mbps service of the provider was the fastest service tested in the country, providing average speeds of around 36Mbps.

Meanwhile, the survey carried out by Ofcom, the UK Broadband Speeds May 2010 study was in partnership with SamKnows, the popular broadband monitoring agency in the UK.

The research revealed that most broadband DSL packages rolled out by the ISPs hardly reached the advertised up to speed, although those on cable broadband services fared better. The research also found that the average broadband speeds in the United Kingdom have increased to 5.2Mbps from 4.1Mbps since 2009 April, even as 24 per cent of the consumers currently enjoyed speeds of more than 10Mbps. This was only 8 per cent last time.

The announcement made by the research carried out by Ofcom and SamKnows was used by Virgin Media's broadband director Jon James for attacking the rivals of his company. He said that it was clear that their DSL competitors were seldom keeping their promises on the 20Mbps broadband with no DSL customers receiving 18Mbps and only 2 Per cent receiving more than 14Mbps.