UK customers short changed on mobile download

Mobile broadband users in the UK are not getting anything like the download data speeds being promoted by ISPs.

A survey by broadband monitoring company Epitiro reports that mobile broadband customers received, on average, just 24 per cent of advertised download speeds, equal to just under 1Mbit/s, compared to the 3.6Mbit/s claimed by most UK ISPs. Mobile web browsing was 34 per cent slower than through equivalent ADSL fixed line connections. Part of the problem appears to be capacity limitation as the survey found that average download speeds almost doubled when tests were carried out in the early hours of the morning.

The Digital Britain report, due out shortly, will recommend that the whole of the UK be served with minimum broadband speeds of 2Mbit/s. The problems of delivering fixed line ADSL to remote areas will require the deployment of mobile broadband. The findings of the Epitiro survey would seem to suggest that mobile broadband will struggle to deliver the data download speeds recommended by Digital Britain.

For more on this story:
ITPro, Silicon.com and 3g.co.uk

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