Average UK broadband speeds triple in four years

Broadband Speeds
Harder, better, faster, stronger

New research from Ofcom shows that the average speed of home broadband in the UK has hit 12Mbps – up from 6.2Mbps two years earlier.

Keeping pace with a world of Netflix watchers, the speed has risen by a third since May 2012, doubling in the last two years and trebling in the last four.

According to the report, over three quarters of UK households were using broadband packages that advertised speeds surpassing 10Mbps by November 2012.

Meanwhile 13 per cent of broadband connections were classed as superfast, while only 5 per cent were the previous year.

Please Sir, I want some more

With more households now choosing to stream their TV and movies from the 'net, the demand for beefier bandwidth has risen considerably. Meanwhile, service providers have accommodated demand by offering better packages with greater speeds.

While only 60 per cent of the UK's ISP packages were accounted for in the figures, Ofcom told us that the results were still reflective of the general population.

"It is a high proportion of the market and the sample we use is nationally representative of the UK population," it said. "We make sure that all urban and rural areas are covered as well."

Upload speeds were also examined and found to be 1.4Mbps on average, compared to 0.3Mbps in May, showing that more of us are sharing as well as taking.

Hugh Langley

Hugh Langley is the ex-News Editor of TechRadar. He had written for many magazines and websites including Business Insider, The Telegraph, IGN, Gizmodo, Entrepreneur Magazine, WIRED (UK), TrustedReviews, Business Insider Australia, Business Insider India, Business Insider Singapore, Wareable, The Ambient and more.


Hugh is now a correspondent at Business Insider covering Google and Alphabet, and has the unfortunate distinction of accidentally linking the TechRadar homepage to a rival publication.