UK - broadband speeds up 20 per cent in six months to 9 Mbps

The Guardian reports a rise in average broadband speed to

The arrival of superfast broadband connections from BT and Virgin Media has boosted the average residential download speed by nearly 20% during the last six months, to nine megabits per second.

Speeds have more than doubled in three years, up from 4.1Mbps in May 2009, and are comfortably ahead of last November's average of 7.6Mbps, according to twice-yearly research by the telecoms watchdog, Ofcom.

See also the OFCOM press release:

In May 2012, over two-thirds of UK fixed-line residential broadband users (68%) were on packages with advertised speeds above ‘up to’ 10Mbit/s, an increase from 48% in May 2011.

The proportion of broadband connections which are superfast (i.e. they have an advertised speed of ‘up to’ 30Mbit/s or above) has increased in recent months with the launch of new superfast packages. By May 2012, 8% of residential broadband connections were superfast, compared with 5% six months previously and 2% in May 2011.

Residential superfast broadband connections are also getting faster, with average speeds increasing from 35.5Mbit/s in November 2011 to 35.8Mbit/s in May 2012.

Full details can be found in the OFCOM report.

Speeds in rural areas had an average of 3.5 and a maximum of 4.0 Mbps, against UK figures of 9.1 and 10.1.