UK households are benefiting from faster, more reliable internet as new Ofcom research reveals average broadband speeds have jumped nearly 20% in the last year.
Ofcom's annual home broadband performance report compares how different broadband packages perform, using data from monitors installed on people's broadband routers.
For the first time, the average download speeds people receive has passed the 50 Mbit/s mark – rising by 18% in the last year to 54.2 Mbit/s.
Upload speeds, which are increasingly important as more people look to work from home or share videos online, have also increased – up 15% to 7.2 Mbit/s. Both download and upload speeds have more than doubled in the last five years.
The fastest speeds recorded in the research were from Virgin Media’s VIVID 350 cable package, with average peak time speeds hitting 360.2 Mbit/s. BT’s 300 Mbit/s full-fibre package was second fastest, with an average peak time speed of 300.6 Mbit/s. This package was top for average peak time upload speeds at 48.8 Mbit/s.