Figures recently-released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) do not tell the full story of the UK broadband speed lag, one expert has suggested.

While admitting that the figures which show broadband making up nearly 95 per cent of the connections in the country signals the near-end for dial-up, David Allen of Tech Radar was less enamoured with the speed stats.

He said that although the ONS claimed 57 per cent of UK broadband connections in September 2008 boasted speeds of over 2Mb, they were just the advertised 'up to' figures quoted by many provider rather than the actual average.

Mr Allen commented: "Although the figures say that these customers get more than a 2Mb broadband connection, these figures are just going on those customers who have signed up for the service as advertised by the ISPs and not on the actual broadband connection speeds achieved, which would have been much more helpful."

Research from Cisco Systems found that the UK is not even in the top ten in Europe for broadband speeds, trailing behind countries such as Russia and Lithuania.