Virgin Media and Vodafone scooped two awards each at the second annual Top 10 Broadband Awards, to emerge as the year’s fastest home and mobile broadband providers respectively – based on the results of over 1.5 million customer ratings and 400,000 speed tests on Top10’s website.

Virgin Media picked up the highly coveted Broadband Innovation award for its pioneering 50Mb product and was also named Fastest Home Broadband provider. Vodafone was recognised as the Fastest Mobile Broadband supplier and the supplier of the UK’s Best Rated Mobile Broadband

Other winners at the ceremony were as follows:

• O2 was the customers’ favourite, winning Best Rated Home Broadband award

• Plusnet overcame strong challenges to be named the Best Value Home Broadband provider for its Value package

• The Best Value Mobile Broadband award went to 3 for its market-leading dongle offering that offers 15GB usage per month for £15

• TalkTalk won Best Broadband & Phone for its Essentials package

• The Best Broadband & TV category was won by Sky after it beat off competition from Virgin Media and BT

• Orange won Best Broadband & Laptop for their range of offers

• BT’s Home Hub technology meant it scooped Best Wireless Broadband

In addition to the customer ratings and speed tests, extensive qualitative research into all areas of the nominees’ product propositions was used to decide who won the awards.

Spencer Kelly of the BBC’s technology programme Click presented the 11 awards to an audience that included many of the biggest names in the broadband industry.

Alex Buttle, Director at Top10 Broadband, said: “The last 12 months have seen huge changes in the broadband market and it is clear most Brits are getting more broadband choice and better broadband service than ever before. What these awards also demonstrate is just how competitive the broadband market is in 2009, with no single provider dominating the categories.”

The judges were especially impressed by Virgin Media, who won the Fastest Broadband and Broadband Innovation awards. In their commendation the judges said: “Virgin Media’s 50Mb service has made the almost unthinkable possible right here in the UK - things like downloading a 60Mb album in just 11 seconds. At a time when the average UK broadband speed is hovering around the 4Mb mark and concerns are being raised over the UK’s technological infrastructure, Virgin Media’s investment into providing customers with a 50Mb fibre-optic product is a next-generation service today.”

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Appendix

The Top10 judging panel based the results of their awards on rigorous quantitative and qualitative research. The speed awards were based on over 400,000 speed tests captured on the site over the past three months. The Best Rated Home and Mobile Broadband Awards were decided by collating ‘star-ratings’ given to broadband providers by members of the public when carrying out speed tests, with the winners being those who polled the highest average consumer ratings.

The broadband bundle awards were judged by carrying out exhaustive research into the range, speed, cost and quality features of the plans offered by each nominee. To judge the home and mobile broadband suppliers which offer the best value for money, Top 10 Broadband took into account packages’ monthly cost, download allowance and feedback from visitors to the site.

For more information on the judging of each awards and why each winner was chosen please see the award pages linked to below:

Award Winners

Best Broadband & Phone TalkTalk

Best Broadband & TV Sky

Best Broadband & Laptop Orange

Best Wireless Broadband BT

Fastest Home Broadband Virgin Media

Fastest Mobile Broadband Vodafone

Best Value Home Broadband Plusnet

Best Value Mobile Broadband 3

Best Rated Home Broadband O2

Best Rated Mobile Broadband Vodafone

Broadband Innovation Virgin Media

Links:

Top 10 Broadband Awards 2009 results

Top 10 Broadband homepage

Notes to Editors:

Top 10 Broadband is the UK's most popular dedicated broadband comparison site with over 12 million visitors per year.

The award-winning website offers a range of comparison tools and customer reviews, allowing users to make quick and easy broadband buying decisions.

Contact us:

Jessica McArdle Top 10 Broadband press@top10.co.uk 0203 170 8042

Pete Marcus Citigate Dewe Rogerson Peter.marcus@citigatedr.co.uk 0207 282 2815