Broadband benchmarking company Epitiro says UK mobile broadband speeds are dramatically less than advertised. Its new report, entitled ‘UK Mobile Broadband Performance Analysis – Initial Findings 2009’, involved monitoring the actual customer experience of UK mobile broadband users. Over 1,300 UK mobile broadband users were selected at random to download Epitiro’s monitoring software, which reported over 1.4 million test results from December 2008 until May 2009.
Web surfing, downloading, VoIP calls, internet gaming and streaming video were monitored on the 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin Media and Vodafone networks.
Epitiro found that UK mobile broadband users received on average just 24% of advertised download speeds, with web browsing 34% slower than equivalent fixed-line ADSL broadband services. However, the time of day was a major factor: average mobile broadband speeds doubled to 1.8 Mbps at 3am on weekdays. The company offers a free broadband speed-checking tool available from www.isposure.com. [Press release]