How fast is your broadband?
This week, I chaired a meeting of the Consumer forum for Communications at the headquarters of the communications regulator Ofcom. One of the presentations was from Ofcom staff on the subject of superfast broadband (SFBB).
Superfast broadband is defined as a service offering a download speed of at least 30 megabits per second (Mbit/s). We were advised that such a service is now available to 94% of UK premises, but only 47% of premises with access to SFBB have actually signed up to the service.
If you look more closely at that 94% coverage figure, we see that (astonishly) 19% have no broadband connection at all, 16% have a connection up to 10 Mbits/s, 20% have a connection between 10 and 30 Mbit/s, and 45% have a connection above 30 Mbit/s.
So, where are you in this picture? Up until last weekend, my broadband connection was around 24 Mbit/s but, since Tuesday, it has been 100 Mbit/s. I moved home and switched from TalkTalk to Virgin Media. So, now I really am in the fast lane of the infornation superhighway (as it used to be called).
Ofcom is keen to encourage broadband users to consider increasing the speed that they have and has been running a Boost Your Broadband campaign which provides a lot of useful information.