November’s average broadband speed was 7.6 megabits per second, up from 6.8Mbps in May, says the regulator.

Upgrades offered by Virgin Media and BT helped boost the figure.

Ofcom says many of the 42% of homes which subscribe to speeds of 10Mbps or less would benefit from switching deal or provider at little or no cost.

The 22% headline speed bump is a notable improvement, according to the price comparison website broadbandchoices.co.uk.

“In reality, the average speed increase of 1.4Mbits will save you around 6 minutes when downloading a 2 hour film,” said Michael Philips, the firm’s product director.

“This doesn’t sound a lot but faster connections improve your general web-surfing experience and are definitely worth the investment, for example if more than one person shares the connection in a household.”

Ofcom noted that the price difference between many of the so-called super-fast services and current generation connections was “relatively small”.

It said Plusnet customers could roughly double their promised speed to “up to” 40Mbps by swapping to a service with the firm that cost £5 more a month.

It said TalkTalk clients could enjoy a similar gain by paying their provider an extra £10 a month, while one of BT’s deals offered an equivalent speed bump at no extra charge.

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The regulator said the winning bidder will have to provide the high-speed coverage to current “not-spot” areas.

It said the measures would help bring fast mobile internet to parts of the country that are underserved.

The bidding process for the spectrum is still scheduled for the end of this year, Ofcom said.

A 10-week consultation period into the revisions will now begin ahead of Ofcom’s final decision on the precise details of the auction.

In a statement, Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards said: “We are proposing a significant enhancement of mobile broadband, extending 4G coverage beyond levels of existing 2G coverage – helping to serve many areas of the UK that have traditionally been underserved by network coverage.”

Ofcom had previously proposed that a “special condition” be added to oblige the winning bidder to roll out a 4G network to 95% of the UK population.

It now said it wants to extend that reach to 98%, by allowing the mobile operator to effectively piggyback already planned government investment into boosting 2G coverage in remote rural areas.

Ofcom argues this stipulation will encourage the operator to invest in areas that are of most benefit to the UK.

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The upgrade, which begins in February, will also see the service’s top speed increase from 100Mbps to 120Mbps.

The full roll-out is expected to be complete by mid-2013 at a cost to the company of £110m.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, said the investment would be a “great boost” to the UK.

“I welcome this announcement from Virgin Media,” Mr Cameron said in a statement.

“It will provide a great boost for the economy and change the way many households, consumers and businesses use the internet.”

“Rolling out superfast broadband across the country is a critical part of our plan to upgrade the UK’s infrastructure and build a new and smarter economy.”

The government has set targets to improve the UK’s broadband speeds considerably in the next three years.

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “Faster broadband speeds are great for customers and great for business, which is why our policy is to deliver superfast broadband to 90% of the country by 2015.

“Virgin Media’s plans to double broadband speeds are really exciting and we applaud their ambition.”

Last year BT announced it was investing £2.5bn to make fibre broadband available to two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2015.

It promised significant improvements to most homes, while even faster broadband – around 300Mbps – will become available in certain “superfast” areas.

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The service will be rolled out across the boroughs of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in 2012.

It will be powered by a system installed on street furniture.

O2 said the deal, which will have no cost to the taxpayer, will enable visitors to “make the most of what London has to offer”.

Councillor Philippa Roe, cabinet member for strategic finance at Westminster City Council, said: “Westminster welcomes over a million tourists a day, is home to 250,000 residents, employs over half a million people and sees 4,000 business starts-ups each year.

“Visitors to London will easily be able to share their pictures and updates of the Olympic events across social networking sites.”

O2 will begin installing the Metro wireless network across Westminster this month, initially being available in limited areas before being rolled out across both boroughs.

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The government named four pilot areas last year, but local councils have admitted that they have not yet started work on their broadband projects.

Freedom of information requests were sent to councils in each area.

The responses revealed that none had received any money from the Treasury, chosen a company to build their networks, or started work on them.

In October last year George Osborne named Cumbria, Herefordshire, North Yorkshire and the Highlands and Islands, as pilot areas for rural superfast broadband networks.

The Countryside Alliance says that unless the whole process is simplified, the digital divide will keep growing and the money pledged will be all but worthless.

A government spokesman said all four pilot projects were making good progress, and ministers remained confident that Britain would have Europe’s best broadband network by 2015.

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The study refers to new internet services including media, smarter energy meters, and access to education and health advice.

The British tech trade association Intellect claims the market could be worth £3bn a year within five years.

However, it says a range of problems must be addressed first, including a “bewildering” range of technologies.

The report says customers are confused by different types of cabling and multiple standards.

As an example it notes that the existing Digital Living Network Alliance, which aims to ensure devices can communicate with each other, has several sub-categories under the same logo.

It says that as a result consumers can buy two pieces of DNLA certified equipment which “don’t interoperate”.

It also notes that there is no single place for consumers to go to receive unbiased and accurate advice on all the services on offer.

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In his autumn statement, Chancellor George Osborne announced £5bn of spending on infrastructure projects such as roads, railways and broadband networks.

£100m of that is set to boost broadband coverage in London, Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff.

A further six cities will be identified later.

“For the first time we are identifying over 500 infrastructure projects we want to see built over the next decade and beyond. Roads, railways, airport capacity, power stations, waste facilities, broadband networks,” the chancellor told the House of Commons.

“It means creating new superfast digital networks for companies across our country. These do not exist today. See what countries like China or Brazil are building, and you’ll also see why we risk falling behind the rest of the world,” he said.

“Our great cities are at the heart of our regional economies. And we will help bring world leading, superfast broadband and wi-fi connections to 10 of them – including the capitals of all four nations.

The plan is to create a hub of super-fast cities with broadband speeds of between 80 to 100Mbps (megabits per second) and city-wide high-speed mobile connectivity.

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The research, conducted by the comparison site Uswitch, was based on two million broadband speed tests.

The peak surfing times between 7pm and 9pm were the slowest to be online, the report said.

There were also huge regional variations between evening and early morning surfing times.

The report suggested the best time to be online was between 2am and 3am.

Users in Evesham, Worcestershire, fared worst, according to the survey, with a massive 69% drop-off between off-peak morning and evening surfing.

Those living in Weston-super-Mare did little better with speeds falling from an off-peak average of 9.5Mbps (megabits per second) to 3.4Mbps in the evening – a 64% drop.

The difference was often most noticeable in rural areas where even peak speeds were relatively slow. In Wadebridge, in Cornwall, speeds nearly halved from 4.1Mbps at off-peak times to 2.1Mbps at peak times.

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