Research by independent analysts show that Virgin Media is topping the tables in UK broadband speed tests. The average speed of 6.14Mbps is almost 2Mbps faster than the UK average of 4.3Mbps. The findings were calculated using thousands of broadband speed test results nationwide, over the month of June 2009.

O2 and Be broadband were runners up, both providing an average of 5.6Mbps download (the two companies results being the same as they share a common infrastructure). For people living outside of the areas supplied by the top 3 providers broadband speeds were below average, with the majority of the UKs other providers not managing to supply broadband with a download speed over the UK average.

When comparing how much of a broadband connections theoretical speed is actually provided to the customer Be broadband came out on top. On average Be provides over 120% of the speed that an average ADSL customer in the same area might get.

Although Virgin tops the chart for fast download, it is also notable that O2 and Be have a faster average upload speed of 748kbps, with virgin managing 467kbps. The national average upload speed is 433kbps.