UK home broadband performance

Ofcom’s Communications Market Report 2023 shows that 86% of UK households take fixed broadband. This report summarises our research to understand broadband performance. It is based on two main sources of data: data collected by SamKnows from volunteers who connect a hardware monitoring unit to their broadband router; and data provided to Ofcom by the UK’s four largest broadband providers. Superfast products accounted for 93% of all home broadband lines. The share of residential broadband connections that were superfast products (those with an advertised speed of 30 Mbps or higher) increased from 91% to 93% in the year to March 2023, while 11% of lines were ultrafast products with advertised speeds of at least 300 Mbps. Average residential download speeds have continued to increase. UK home broadband connections' median average download speed was 69.4 Mbps in March 2023, a 10.1 Mbps (17%) increase year-on-year, as people upgraded to higher-bandwidth services. The gap between average urban and rural speeds has narrowed. There was a 26% difference between average urban (70.3 Mbps) and rural (56.0 Mbps) download speeds during the 8-10 pm peak-time period, down from 58% in 2022.