UK mobile broadband: pay through the nose, get just 24 per cent of advertised speeds

Anyone who uses mobile broadband in the UK knows what a lottery it is. First, getting connected and staying connected is a big (and strangely underplayed) problem in many places. Networks are under pressure and calls fail or are dropped far too frequently.

And then there's the speed of data downloads. Operators spend a king's ransom advertising (and promising) headline speeds that, quite simply, are almost never achieved.

We all know this anecdotally, but now comes real evidence. The broadband comparison site, Broadband Expert, has just published the results of a major independent survey showing that whilst the advertised "maximum" speed of mobile broadband connections in Britain is 4.5Mbps, the actual average download speed is a paltry 1.1Mbps - i.e. just 24 per cent of what the operators claim and what you pay for.

Broadband Expert tested 3,342 mobile broadband connections between March 1 and August 31 this year. Vodafone provided the fastest connectivity (at an average of 1.3 Mbps) but delivered the lowest percentage of its advertised speeds -a mere 18 per cent of the 7.2 Mbps it claims possible in its advertising. Interestingly, Vodafone has recently announced (with much fanfare) that it is soon to increase its mobile broadband download speed to 14.4Mbps. presumably this means punters will actually get 2.6Mbps if they are lucky.

The fact of the matter is that, to the user, there is little discernible difference in the download speeds thay get - they are all a lot slower than advertised. 3UK's mobile broadband customers get the best average speed at 1.2Mbps, but this is no more than a third of the top rate claimed to be achievable. Bottom of the pile is T-Mobile.