Broadband Speeds: Advertised versus Real World

When broadband providers want to sell a broadband service they generally use the theoretical maximum speed of the technology to market their product.  These theoretical maximum speeds are however much higher than the average speeds achieved by users in everyday usage.

A recent survey in the United Kingdom found that the average download speed of an 8 Mbps broadband service is only 4.1 Mbps – just over 50% of the advertised speed.  This average speed drops to 3.7 Mbps between 8 pm and 10 pm when most broadband subscribers are online.

In South Africa the situation looks similar.  Results from the recent MyBroadband Survey shows that the average ‘real world’ download speed is only 54% of the advertised speed.  This figure drops to 52% for upload speeds.  (The real world speeds were calculated by finding the average of the local and international speed test results of the 2 000 broadband subscribers who completed the 2009 MyBroadband Survey.)

Some good results

There were however a few surprises.  Telkom’s WiMax service, which the telecoms provider no longer actively markets and sells, had an average download speed of 0.59 Mbps – 8% higher than the advertised speed. 

iBurst’s WiMax service also performed particularly well as a best effort broadband service with an average download speed of 1010 Kbps – very close to the advertised downlink speed of 1024 Kbps.  The average upload speed of 1001 Kbps is within 2% of the advertised speed of 1024 Kbps.

The following table provides an overview of the ‘Advertised Speed versus Real World Performance’ for most of South Africa’s mainstream broadband services.

Advertised versus Real World broadband speeds discussion