The BBC recently highlighted UK Broadband “Notspots“, i.e. areas of the UK with little or no broadband access. Within a relatively small area the speed of possible broadband connection can vary enormously.
Please use this broadband speed test to see if you are in fact getting what you are paying for. We would like to show the best and the worst – and everything inbetween – so leave a record of your findings in the comments field below. Please let us know what your results are, where you are, and who your provider is. And to be fair, what broadband package you are paying for.
This test can also be used with Mobile Broadband. If you have a mobile contract and move around connecting from different places your imput here might help others to know whether they will really get advertised speeds in an area where it is important for them to have a good connection. Also, having found some of our clients have such truly awful landline broadband connections it would be helpful to know in fact whether they would fair better with a mobile contract.
If your result is disappointing, and below 2 Mb record it here and also at the community project run by thinkbroadband that is campaigning to increase broadband speeds in particularly poorly served areas.
Download: 9496 Kbps i.e. nearly 10 Mb
Upload: 454 Kbps
Wantage, Oxon, OX12 9AX
Virgin Media 10 Mb package
Pleased with this result, though upload speed not great.
Download: 720 Kbps
Upload: 669Kbps
Wantage, Oxon, OX12 9AX
Vodafone Mobile Broadband
Not brilliant, but better than dial-up!
Abingdon
Firenet
Download 712Kbps
Upload 363Kbps
Seriously bad though i cant get more than 2 mb til bt update us ;o(
Download 9688 Kbps
Upload 533 Kbps
Oxford OX4
Eclipse
What a dinky little meter! Just checking a friend’s Sky connection here this morning.
Up – 318
Down – 6800
Up is about the same as my Demon bizline, down is faster. Two sides of the same village – this one is nearer BT’s local junction box and newer, underground, cables.
5400 Download 377 Upload. I’m paying Demon for a nominal 8000 but this is about what I normally get. I’m not complaining.
Download 6688Kbps
Upload 310Kbps
Wallingford OX10 9RG using Madasafish Max Broadband
Just run their own test which said 5.26mb download
down 6528
up 346
This is BT business broadband – so presumably not good enough? OX12 OHX
Hi Penny
If you are paying for 10 Mb you are getting around 6.5 MB/s. If you are using the business homehub go to its embedded webpage and it should report how it thinks it is doing. Though this is the speed to and from BT’s server I guess rather than the wider internet.
I suspect they will say there are other benefits to business broadband (what?!) but really performance-wise you may be getting 3/4 of what you are paying for.
down 3872 kbps
up 293 kbps
SN78HN
Orange
Test from my Demon bizline from t’other side of village.
Up 362
Down 4008
So down’s quite a lot slower – but it’s a lot more stable and has only occcasionally stuttered on eg iPlayer.
Which village would that be? 4 Mb is respectable.
A very sorry state of affairs 464 dload and 225 upload so no iplayer for me !!
Sadly this is an improved situation , so don’t move to North Moreton is all I can suggest not for a couple of years anyway .
Hi Charlie
I hoped you would take the test because I know what a raw deal you have had with your broadband. You make a telling point about not moving to somewhere with poor internet service. Is this now a consideration when buying a house? A notspot map like the one here could be a significant factor. So with some reservation I say register your result with http://www.broadband-notspot.org.uk/.
As to iplayer: For the Mac there is iPlayer Downloader which will at least allow you to get the program to watch without stuttering.
Down 1904
Up 305
Goring & Streatley RG8 0DX
Plusnet
I’m with BT Business Broadband and it’s got progressively worse and worse over the last few months. We’re now down to a paltry 696 download and 373 upload and i don’t even live in North Moreton! I think I’m paying for up to* (*haha) 8Megs. Any thoughts?
Hi Chilli Pickle
Well, you aren’t far from North Moreton, and between Didcot, Dorchester and Wallingford there’s a Bermuda Triangle with poor broadband. Register the result with the address above, and ask around your area. I’d love to know if anyone in that Triangle gets good reception! I don’t know what mobile broadband is like in your area, if you can’t get BT to improve things. And I assume there’s no Virgin Media cable? Let me know.
Forgot to add: complain to BT, get some money back as you are getting less than 10% of what you are paying for!
Download 5904 Kbps
Upload 371 Kbps
What a clever test this is! Download speed is ok, the upload seems very slow – I am with talktalk, not sure now if I should change providers, Hook Norton (my village) is notorious for no signal for mobiles so maybe we are lucky to get anything at all!
Download 3016Kbps
Upload 342Kbps
Stanton St John with BT. Does seem agonizingly slow these days
Download 720
Upload 376
Ashampstead RG8 8RU with BT iplayer hopeless
DL 1328kb/s
UL 463kb/s
Radley Green area, Abingdon
Virgin Media up to 20 Mb/s package.
I am taking this up with Virgin as Richard Branson’s video message to his customers (1min 30sec) took me about 6 minutes to view completely.
Download 2840 Kbps
Up 374Kbps
I signed on with Brightview Madasafish Talk Anytime. Plusnet has taken over the service, there hasn’t been any improvement. Looking at the other speeds it seems a poor relation.
If you are on cable as Ian, above, and you are getting ridiculously slow speeds, call them to see if there is a glitch they are trying to fix… I often find this is so. But if it isn’t that, do try connecting your computer directly (via ethernet cable) rather than wifi, and see if that helps. It could be that your home network is the culprit.
Download 13632Kbps
Upload 399Kbps
Happy with the download, not so much with the upload. At least the download speed is very close to promised speed.
Upload speed is usually significantly less than download speed for domestic lines. Businesses can negotiate deals whereby they are the same as some businesses will be serving data directly to the web.