Average UK broadband speed jumps to 223Mbps

Ofcom's Connected Nations 2024 report, published today, shows a jump in average broadband speeds across the UK from 170Mb to 223Mb over the past year.

They also reveal how take-up of full fibre broadband, where available, is rising, with 35% of premises moving to full fibre compared to 28% in May 2023.

Gigabit broadband coverage is also reported to have reached 83%, or 25 million residential premises as of July 2024, closing in on the Government's target of 85% by 2025.

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Faster broadband speeds

Ofcom have reported the UK's average maximum download speed now sits at 223Mb per second, up 31% from 170Mb per second in 2023.

That's a notable jump from Ofcom's last broadband speeds research report, published in September 2023, which stated UK average download speed was just 69.4Mb per second as of March 2023.

Since dropping their UK home broadband performance reports, Ofcom are now including a new 'sub-section' in their report this year looking at the performance of different networks, connection types, and parts of the UK.

Northern Ireland was found to have the fastest broadband speeds on average at 259Mbps, followed by England with 225Mbps, Scotland with 215Mbps, and lastly Wales at 181Mbps.

Northern Ireland benefits from broader full fibre coverage, at 93% as we look at below, as well as multiple national providers including both Openreach and Fibrus who specifically connect rural areas, as well as Virgin Media/Nexfibre in more urban areas.

Ofcom have also given an interesting breakdown of take-up of different speed tiers of full fibre broadband, showing an increase in take-up of faster packages.

While 100Mb plans remain the most popular entry-point for full fibre broadband, fewer people are now taking sub-100Mb plans, and more are moving up to 300Mb and faster options as well.

We've also seen an increase in the number of faster multi-gigabit packages being made available to residential consumers this year, with Virgin Media, Vodafone, BeFibre, LightSpeed, and Trooli all launching 2Gb+ plans.

This also plays into the figures released by Ofcom which show the average maximum download speed of all full fibre connections in the UK now sits at 406Mb, which is similar to the average speed on Virgin Media's coaxial cable network of 437Mb.

Full fibre growth

The regulator says the increase in average speed reflects the increase in availability and take-up of full fibre broadband services, as well as a move to higher speed packages.

More homes are now moving to full fibre, with a take-up rate of 35% as of July 2024 for homes that can access new full fibre to the home technologies, up from 28% in May 2023.

This totals an increase of 2.9 million new full fibre connections for a total of 7.5 million premises connected to full fibre across the UK.

In terms of actual coverage, Ofcom reports as many as 20.7 million UK homes can now access full fibre broadband, or 69%, up from 57% (17.1 million) in September 2023.

As with faster broadband speeds, Northern Ireland has the most full fibre availability with 93% of homes able to access full fibre.

Scotland lags behind the furthest at 62% residential full fibre coverage, while Wales has 68% and England has 69%.

Gigabit targets

With Virgin Media's coaxial cable network also delivering gigabit broadband speeds nationally since December 2021, figures for gigabit coverage take in both full fibre and Virgin cable footprints.

Ofcom report gigabit-capable residential properties have now reached 83% of the UK, which totals 25 million homes, suggesting the Government's target of 85% gigabit coverage by 2025 is more than likely to be met.

Indeed, Thinkbroadband's write-up of Ofcom's Connected Nations 2024 report reveals they've recorded 86.19% residential properties with gigabit-capable broadband as of 1st December 2024.

Thinkbroadband commented, "Since 31st July 2024 we've tracked an additional 1.73 points of Gigabit coverage which if added to the Ofcom 83% figure suggests the 85% has been hit too."