Average Broadband Speeds

[Ann]

My BB seems very slow in loading on pages with a lot of info like facebook or Daily Mail website. I tested my BB speed and it is 7.8 download and 0.5mb upload. Are these speeds pretty average - I have no idea what they should be - I'm with Talktalk. Thanks. :)

[Buenchico]

There are plenty of people who are living in rural areas (with copper cables, rather than the newer fibre-optic ones) who would love to have a download speed of 7.8Mbps. The Government's target figure is for all homes to have broadband access at a minimum speed of just 2Mbps by 2015. It's already accepted that the industry will miss those targets by up to 3 years in rural parts of East Anglia (as well as some other areas), where current speeds are well below 1Mbps.

There are 3 types of copper-wired ADSL connection. The basic standard is simply 'ADSL', where the maximum speed available is unlikely to be above 2Mbps. However BT Wholesale (who sell broadband capacity to other ISPs) offer 'ADSL Max' as their standard product. Theoretically that offers speeds of up to about 8Mbps but the majority of users probably get around 5Mbps (which is what most people in my street get). Lastly, there's 'ADSL 2+' that effectively gives a user two connections to the internet at the exchange, doubling 'ADSL Max' speeds (so I get around 10Mbps with ADSL 2+).

People who are connected to the internet via fibre-optic cables (such as the services offered by Virgin or BT Infinity) generally get speeds anywhere between 20Mbps and a theoretical 160Mbps.

As a further rough guide, video-streaming sites usually recommend a minimum speed of 2Mbps but I'd suggest that 5Mbps is desirable for a reliable connection.

If your pages are loading slowly then consider changing your browser (Firefox is much, much faster than Internet Explorer, for example) and/or installing an ad-blocker (because it's often the ads on a page that slow everything down).

[sherrardk]

Gosh, you lucky so and so. We are lucky if ours hits 1! And sometimes there are lots of us trying to use it at once.

[boxtops]

we are so lucky here, having fibre optics...... makes me realise just how lucky!

[Ann]

Thanks Chris, I just knew you would answer me! I have tried to change to Firefox in the past but I couldn't get used to it, some features aren't the same as IE8. The main thing which I miss on FF is when I want to copy a picture and save it to My Pictures. On IE8 I simply right click on the picture and choose "save picture as ...." and it immediately saves it in My Pictures and I just have to label it. In FF it seems to vanish into "Downloads" and I have no idea where to find it again! As most of the work I do is producing newsletters I use logos and pictures a lot, so FF would not work as well in this respect. Plus the fact I'm not technically minded (bit thick!) so I don't really understand what I'm doing if I change to another browser. Can you advise me on saving pics in Firefox please Chris? :)

[sherrardk]

The thing that really ticks me off is that we live really, really close to a very technical army camp and you just know that they have much better internet access than us.

[Buenchico]

Thanks for your reply Ann.

Your problem in Firefox is easily solved. Go to Tools > Options. Select the 'General' tab. You can then choose the folder that all downloads should be stored in (such as 'My Pictures') or, as I do, select 'Always ask me where to save files'.

[Ann]

Just tried it Chris, wow I didn't know that it would be so easy, thanks! What a great teacher you are!! ;) I will now clear my temporary files and use FF and see if it is any quicker. Thanks again x

[Tuvok]

I've got just below 5mb with BT

A few months ago a Talk Talk person toured our village and claimed among other things that we are paying BT for a speed we can't get - he did not believe me when i told him my speed "no you're not getting as much as that"!!!

Told him I knew exactly what speed I get and that I do regular speed tests with the iPad to which he said "the iPad measures things differently"

What a numpty. Pull the other one. - its got bells on!

[Ann]

I have tried it and it is better, thanks. How do I use FF but keep Google as my home page, it is coming up as Yahoo search.

[Buenchico]

Go to https://www.google.co.uk/
Then go to Tools > Options and the General tab. Click on 'Use current pages'. (If you also want Google to appear when you first start Firefox, ensure that 'When Firefox starts' is set to 'Show my home page'.

For web searching remember that you can simply enter search terms into the box at the top right of your display and hit 'Enter'. (That's what I do). You can change your chosen search engine from Google to Yahoo, Bing, or whatever by clicking on the icon (or downward arrow) at the left of that box.

[Ann]

Many thanks!

[Old_Geezer]

I'm unsure about average but I was disappointed this weekend to find my woman is paying for an "up to 16M" link and only getting 5M6 download. Darned con these "up to" figures. Should show "at least guarantied" figures.

Just tested, I'm presently getting 11M5. Not sure what I'm paying for though :-)