UK comes in 33rd place for broadband speed
June 25, 2010 at 12:41 pm
The UK has come 33rd in a list of countries based on their average broadband speeds. This places it behind Liechtenstein, and means it comes just above the average speed for the whole world.
The results are revealed in the Net Index released by Ookla, which examined over 1.5 billion records to come up with the data. South Korea has the fastest speed, which will surprise no one. The country has an incredible record for broadband speeds over the years, and its average speed according to Ookla is currently 34.19Mbps.
This places it well above the second country on the list, Latvia, which has an average speed of 24.3Mbps. Next on the list come Moldova, Japan and Sweden.
With the UK boasting an average speed of just 7.7Mbps, South Korea has an average speed nearly five times faster. However, our average speed is 0.3Mbps above the global average, which is something at least.
The UK can take heart from the fact that even the mighty United States didn’t do too much better, coming in 26th place overall with 10.16Mbps.
In last place was Zambia, with a lowly 260Kbps, coming 154th on the list.
Interestingly, the results also revealed the top locations within each country for broadband speeds. In the UK, where you would expect London and other big cities to be the obvious winners, it was the likes of Welling, Loughton and Dartford that scored the highest.
The top location in the world was, unsurprisingly, Seoul, the capital of South Korea, with an average speed of 34.66Mbps.
Brits hate slow broadband more than anything else
June 18, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Of all the daily gripes that annoy the nation the most, what’s the one to come top of the lot? Slow broadband.
It turns out that Brits hate slow broadband more than anything else, including crime and NHS waiting times. This, if anything, is proof of just how important the internet has become to our lives. No longer do we just need access to broadband, but we need it to be fast.
The results are part of the ‘Niggles and Narks’ advertising campaign from O2. 2,040 people were interviewed for a survey as part of the campaign, and a massive 41% of respondents stated that slow broadband was their biggest frustration.
The head of broadband at O2, Felix Geyr, said “It’s clear from this poll that the British public is getting increasingly frustrated with the UK’s broadband services”.
We’ve all been in the situation where we just want to check our emails quickly and the page takes an age to load. The internet is about getting access to information quickly, and we no longer feel that we should wait for pages to load.
It’s lucky that the government is committed to providing a minimum speed across the country of 2Mbps, but this might not be enough for many. BT and Virgin are both increasing their investment in super-fast broadband speeds, so hopefully slow broadband will one day be a thing of the past.
The second most frustrating thing for the nation was unfriendly customer support at 36%, followed by crime at 26%, job cuts at 18% and NHS waiting times at 14%.
Broadband users don’t want to reveal too many details
June 11, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Barely a day goes by without some information coming out in the news about privacy being put at risk on the internet. Facebook has been particularly in the spotlight due to its own controversial privacy settings. Now it looks like all this is rubbing off on the public, as a recent report from Ofcom suggests that more people are becoming wary about entering their personal details online.
The study, in which 1,824 people aged 16 and over were asked about their internet habits, showed that more people are clued up on security issues than they were in 2007.
One of the most telling signs was the country’s attitude to social networking sites. Across the UK, only 20% of adults with social networks let people other than their friends and family have access to their accounts. Back in 2007 it was 52%.
According to Ofcom, Northern Ireland is the most cautious place in the country when it comes to internet use. People here are less likely to enter their details online, whether these are their home addresses or their card details. Indeed, nearly 75% of people in Northern Ireland believe that making purchases online puts their privacy at risk, compared to 59% across the UK.
In contrast, adults in Scotland were the least likely to be concerned about entering personal details online. 50% of people here responded that they didn’t mind entering their home addresses online, compared with just 23% in Northern Ireland.
Again, whereas 44% of people in Scotland don’t mind entering their credit card details, only 19% in Northern Ireland answered the same.
The survey also showed that internet use is most heavy in Scotland, with people here spending 10.6 hours a week online. This compares to 8.3 hours in England, 6.8 in Wales and 6.5 in Northern Ireland.
Two thirds to be covered by BT fibre broadband
June 3, 2010 at 2:27 pm
There was good news for the UK’s internet users recently as BT announced that it is increasing its investment in super-fast broadband. The announcement means that the number of people able to benefit from faster speeds in the near future will be even greater.
The announcement was made by Ian Livingston, the chief executive of BT. He said that the company is now planning on investing a further £2.5 billion into the scheme, significantly increasing the proportion of the country that will be able to benefit from fast broadband speeds.
The new investment means that fibre broadband could be made available for up to two thirds of all the homes in the UK by 2015. BT’s previous pledge was to invest £1.5 billion with the aim of getting 40% of homes access to high-speed broadband by 2012.
The broadband speeds being proposed should be up to 40Mbps. At the moment, the maximum that most customers can get is 20Mbps. However, even faster speeds are likely across many areas of the country.
The news means that the battle between BT and Virgin Media is really set to heat up. Virgin Media is the only other main rival to BT in the super-fast broadband market, covering about 50% of the country. It will be interesting to see how Virgin reacts to the news, and whether it will improve its own service as a result.
BT also announced on top of this that it wants to improve its TV service. Livingston said that it will “offer a range of new television services ranging from a huge choice of on-demand programming, free to air HD programmes and new interactive services”. He even announced that BT could start to offer Sky Sports 1 and 2 by the time the next football season begins later this year.
