Dutch broadband users are receiving only around 60 percent of advertised download speeds from their ISPs. According to the latest research from Telecompaper, the average download speed achieved in the Netherlands is 8.98 Mbps. That compares to an average speed offered by the ISPs of 14.9 Mbps, meaning users achieve on average 60 percent of advertised rates.
Earlier Telecompaper studies found the average actual download speed at 4.95 Mbps in December 2008 and 2.8 Mbps in November 2006. However, the new study’s results differ as the tests included fibre connections for the first time. The growing number of fibre-to-the-home offers and increased speeds from cable operators are driving the increase in bandwidth, according to the study. Fibre achieved the best average download speed in the study, at 40 Mbps, followed by cable with 14.43 Mbps and DSL with 5.81 Mbps. Fibre and cable also achieved the highest average performance ratios, delivering respectively 62 percent and 65 percent of average offered speeds, while DSL averaged just 55 percent of advertised speeds.
The study found 71 percent of Dutch consumers have download speeds of 6 Mbps or higher. Cable alone has around 40% of connections with 24 Mbps or higher download speed. Cable and fibre also offer much higher upload speeds, with more than 90 percent of cable customers having more than 2 Mbps and fibre offering more than 2 Mbps to all its customers, whereas DSL offers 2 Mbps as a maximum.
Among the ISPs, Het Net (68%), UPC (66%), KPN (65%) and Ziggo (64%) achieved the best average performance ratios when it comes to actual versus advertised download speeds. Ziggo offers the best performance in the low-end segments 0-1.5 Mbps and 1.5-3 Mbps, as well as in the 6-12 Mbps segment. UPC scores best in the 12-24 Mbps, 24-48 Mbps and 48+Mbps segments and tied with Tele2 for the best performance in the 3-6 Mbps segment.