According to telecommunications giant Ericsson, more than 4 billion people worldwide will have mobile broadband by 2011. This rapid expansion means there is constant demand to increase access speeds to accommodate more users and multiple applications. One way broadband providers compete for customers is to offer better speeds. However, researchers have found that such promised speeds don’t actually exist. In the UK, the average actual mobile-broadband download speed is rated at 0.9Mbps (millions of bits per second or megabits per second; a measure of bandwidth). This, however, is but one-fourth the rate promised by most broadband providers, according to a June 2009 report by the Epitiro research group. The average advertised speed promised by UK providers was 3.6Mbps.
An upcoming report by Digital Britain is expected to recommend to the government that all of the UK be provided with a minimum mobile broadband speed of 2Mbps. Epitiro surveyed some 1,300 UK mobile-broadband users for activities such as Web surfing, downloading, video streaming, VoIP calling, and online gaming. The providers included O2, 3, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin Media and Vodafone. Although the current top advertised mobile broadband speed is “up to 8Mbps”, this is actually available only in large cities and airports with 3G coverage. Nevertheless, speed is a crucial factor, with some providers reportedly testing new top speeds in excess of 14.4Mbps. Meanwhile, the speediest 20 providers tested by Epitiro were rated at 1.8Mbps – which dropped to about 1.4Mbps during the peak evening hours from six to midnight.