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O2 welcomes top ranking in mobile broadband study
The carrier came out on top in a study of average mobile broadband speeds.
The research, which saw the regulator conduct more than 4.2 million tests on dongles and data cards in areas with strong 3G coverage, found O2 downloaded webpages faster than 3 Mobile, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone.
Its average latency - a measure of the responsiveness of a connection - was also found to be lower than the levels recorded from 3 Mobile, Orange and Vodafone.
O2's network also won praise from Ofcom for providing the best download speeds at peak times.
Across all five carriers, the average download capability in the busy 20:00 to 22:00 period stood at 1.7Mbps, with basic webpages typically taking 2.2 seconds to load.
Outside of peak times, consumers can expect to receive speeds of 2.1Mbps, it discovered.
Commenting on the results, chief operating officer of O2 Derek McManus stated the achievement is just reward for the amount of money the company has spent on improving its infrastructure.
"Our customers are seeing the benefit from the huge investment we have made in our network," he remarked.
"We always aim to deliver the best network experience for our customers and these results are another indicator that we are doing just that."
Orange was named as the poorest performing carrier in the study, but attributed this disappointing result to capacity issues that affected its infrastructure when the trials were carried out between September and December 2010.
A spokesman for the company, which is part of the Everything Everywhere joint venture along with T-Mobile, insisted changes had been made since the research took place.
"We've delivered significant improvements as part of ongoing investment in our network which has had a positive effect on both speed and capacity," the source claimed.