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Virgin Media tops customer perception of broadband speeds

Analyst company Point Topic has released the results of a recent survey that quizzed users about the broadband speeds they think they are receiving.

The survey measured the advertised speed of a broadband service along with the customers’ perception of what speed they are actually getting.  Virgin Media came out on top, with providers such as Tiscali, BT and Carphone Warehouse also showing an improvement.

Sky was the only provider to show that download speeds appear to have decreased.  This may be due to the popularity of Sky’s broadband packages.  “The damage to Sky seems to be mostly in its 8 and 16Mbps packages, where take-up has increased but reported downstream speeds have decreased in proportion,” said Oliver Johnson, CEO of Point Topic.

Generally consumers think that the broadband speeds they are getting are closer to those advertised in the up to 16Mbps downstream segment.  For speeds over 20Mbps, it appears that cable wins over DSL services, mainly due to the technical barriers of using DSL for superfast broadband. 

ADSL connection speeds are typically slower the further away a premises is from the BT exchange.  Using a fibre-based network such as that of Virgin Media bypasses many technical constraints of DSL and can provide the capability for much higher broadband speeds.