Top five ADSL broadband ISPs revealed

BT's broadband has been rated the best performing and fastest ADSL service in the second quarter of this year by a survey.

Internet benchmarking company Epitiro monitored the ADSL broadband services from the UK's leading consumer ISPs by connecting to the services from 10 locations including Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Manchester, from April to June 2006.

Epitiro managing director Gavin Johns said its consumer ADSL testing found that in terms of internet performance, BT topped the overall rankings for the period from April to June 2006.

BT was also found to provide the fastest service "as a percentage of its theoretical maximum", he said.

AOL, BT and Virgin were the fastest services to actually connect to the internet, while BT, Orange and Pipex were up to four times faster than the industry average at delivering email, he said.

In contrast, customer satisfaction rankings from research company JD Power published late last year ranked Telewest top, AOL second and Wanadoo third.

The top five consumer ISP services in the second quarter, according to Epitiro:

1. BT
2. Virgin
3. Demon
4. AOL
5. Orange