Broadband Speed by Time of Day: When Is UK Internet Fastest?
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Everyone has a theory about when the internet is fastest: early morning, late at night, never on a Sunday evening. We looked at what UK speed tests actually show, hour by hour, using results from our own speed test.
This page is about the data: when speeds and ping are best and worst, and which kinds of network are affected. If your own connection crawls every evening and you want to fix it, our guide to why broadband is slow at night covers the causes and the fixes.
Data as of October 2026
Figures are medians from 4,405 tests run on BroadbandSpeedTest.uk.com from UK connections between 1 April and 15 September 2026, grouped by the hour the test started in UK time. We left out March 2026, when a burst of more than 1,000 tests in three days (4–6 March) would have skewed the hourly picture; including it gives the same overall pattern. VPNs and data centres are excluded. See our methodology. Each monthly speed report also compares evening-peak and off-peak speeds.
The Headline Findings
- Ping is the clearest signal. Median ping rose steadily through the day, from 37 ms overnight to 45 ms in the 7pm–11pm peak, about 22% higher.
- Download speeds dip only slightly at peak time overall. The evening median was 128 Mbps against 135 Mbps for the rest of the day, about 5% lower.
- The dip is concentrated on some networks. Tests from Openreach-based providers were 13% slower in the evening peak (72 vs 83 Mbps). Altnet full fibre and Virgin Media showed no meaningful download drop.
- Weekends aren't slower overall. The weekday and weekend medians were almost identical (135 vs 134 Mbps), though weekend daytime was slower than weekday daytime.
- The fastest-looking hours are late at night, around 11pm to 1am, but far fewer people test then, and they tend to be on faster connections, so treat those figures with care.
Median Speed and Ping by Hour (UK Time)
Bars show median download speed. Hours with fewer than 100 tests are shaded lighter: their medians move a lot with just a few unusual results.
Between 7am and 11pm, when every hour has well over 100 tests, the median download moves between 93 and 154 Mbps with no single dramatic collapse. Hour-to-hour swings of 30–50 Mbps in that range mostly reflect which households happened to test, not the network speeding up or slowing down.
Ping tells a tidier story. It sits at 36–38 ms in the early morning, edges up to 40–44 ms through the working day, and peaks at 44–46 ms from 7pm to 11pm. Latency rises when networks get busy because data has to queue, and that queueing shows up in ping before it shows up in raw download speed. For what those numbers mean in practice, see what is ping.
Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Night
Grouping hours into blocks gives larger samples and steadier figures:
| Time (UK) | Tests | Download | Upload | Ping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overnight (midnight–6am) | 240 | 147 Mbps | 53 Mbps | 37 ms |
| Early morning (6am–9am) | 375 | 128 Mbps | 30 Mbps | 38 ms |
| Morning (9am–noon) | 866 | 135 Mbps | 58 Mbps | 41 ms |
| Early afternoon (noon–3pm) | 805 | 105 Mbps | 47 Mbps | 42 ms |
| Late afternoon (3pm–7pm) | 1,087 | 138 Mbps | 46 Mbps | 42 ms |
| Evening peak (7pm–11pm) | 887 | 128 Mbps | 48 Mbps | 45 ms |
| Late night (11pm–midnight) | 145 | 311 Mbps | 69 Mbps | 39 ms |
The early-afternoon block was the slowest for download (105 Mbps) despite being off-peak. It's a good example of why time-of-day medians need care: daytime testers include more people on phones and laptops away from the router, while late-night testers skew towards enthusiasts on wired, fast connections. The evening-peak rise in ping, on the other hand, appears across almost every group we looked at.
Which Networks Slow Down at Peak Time
Comparing each group with itself removes most of the "who's testing" effect, so this is the fairest view of evening congestion in our data:
| Network group | Peak (7–11pm) | Rest of day | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Openreach-based ISPs (BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Zen and others) | 72 Mbps (473) | 83 Mbps (1,876) | −13% |
| Altnet full fibre | 355 Mbps (158) | 355 Mbps (546) | 0% |
| Virgin Media | 363 Mbps (96) | 368 Mbps (410) | −1% |
| Sky Broadband | 63 Mbps (129) | 76 Mbps (410) | −17% |
| BT Broadband | 91 Mbps (283) | 90 Mbps (1,133) | +1% |
Median download, number of tests in brackets. 1 April to 15 September 2026.
The Openreach-based group shows the classic evening dip, and Sky accounts for a good share of it. BT, the biggest provider in the group, held steady in our data. Ping for the Openreach-based group rose from 40 ms to 44 ms at peak.
Altnet download speeds were flat, but their median upload fell from 213 Mbps off-peak to 159 Mbps at peak. That's from a smaller sample, but it's consistent with busy households uploading more in the evening (cloud photo sync, video calls with family, gaming) rather than with network congestion. Virgin Media's download median barely moved. You can follow each provider over time on its page, such as Sky, BT or Virgin Media.
Why do some networks dip and others don't? Evening slowdowns happen where many customers share a link that isn't much bigger than their combined demand, whether that's inside a provider's own network or where it connects to the rest of the internet. Providers that buy plenty of capacity per customer don't show a dip; those running closer to the limit do. We explain the mechanics in why broadband is slow at night.
Weekdays vs Weekends
| Period | Weekday | Weekend |
|---|---|---|
| All day | 135 Mbps (3,354) | 134 Mbps (1,051) |
| Daytime (9am–5pm) | 128 Mbps (1,719) | 111 Mbps (544) |
| Evening peak (7pm–11pm) | 124 Mbps (696) | 138 Mbps (191) |
Across the whole day there is no weekend penalty. The interesting part is when demand shifts. Weekend daytimes were about 13% slower than weekday daytimes, when many homes are empty or running on a single work laptop. Weekday evenings were slower than weekend evenings, when more people are out. Ping followed the same pattern: 42 ms on weekdays and 40 ms at weekends.
By day of the week, Monday had the lowest median (96 Mbps from 657 tests) and Friday the highest (145 Mbps from 695 tests), with Tuesday to Sunday all between 128 and 145 Mbps. We wouldn't read too much into Monday on its own; a few more months of data will show whether it holds.
How to Read These Figures
- These are different people at different times, not the same homes tested round the clock. A change between hours can mean a change in who is testing as much as a change in the network.
- Most tests are over Wi-Fi, which adds its own variation. See our Wi-Fi vs Ethernet analysis.
- We use medians, so a few gigabit results at 2am can't drag the figure about as much as they would an average, but small hours are still noisy.
- Ofcom's own speed research has used dedicated measurement units in volunteers' homes rather than browser tests, so its peak-time figures aren't directly comparable with ours.
Putting the Data to Use
- Test your own line at different times. Run a wired test in the morning and again between 8pm and 10pm on two or three days. A drop of more than about 20% at peak is bigger than the typical dip in our data and worth raising with your provider.
- Schedule big jobs off-peak. Game downloads and cloud backups are best left to overnight, when ping and congestion are lowest.
- If you game or take calls in the evening, watch ping and jitter rather than download speed; that's where peak-time strain shows first.
- Choosing a provider? The networks with no evening dip in our data were altnet full fibre and Virgin Media. See our altnets vs Openreach comparison.
For a step-by-step method, read how to test your broadband speed accurately. If peak-time speeds keep falling below what your contract guarantees, here's how to complain.
FAQ
What time is broadband fastest in the UK?
In our data, ping is lowest overnight and in the early morning (around 36–38 ms), and download medians are highest late at night. For practical purposes, early morning before about 8am is the most reliable quiet period.
What time is broadband slowest?
The evening peak, 7pm to 11pm, had the highest median ping (45 ms) and a download median about 5% below the rest of the day. On Openreach-based providers the evening dip was larger, about 13%.
Is broadband slower at weekends?
Not overall: 134 Mbps at weekends against 135 Mbps on weekdays. Weekend daytimes were slower than weekday daytimes, but weekend evenings were faster than weekday evenings.
Does full fibre slow down in the evening?
Altnet full-fibre tests showed no drop in median download at peak in our data (355 Mbps both at peak and off-peak). Full fibre on Openreach is included in the Openreach-based group, which mixes full and part fibre, so we can't isolate it.