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According to the study by Point Topic, average prices for a DSL subscription have fallen 20 per cent worldwide over the first three quarters of 2008, while cable prices have dropped 12 per cent and fibre prices are down by 6.5 per cent.

"Since Virgin has adjusted its offerings over the year, consumers can now buy 2Mb, 10Mb or 20Mb packages (as opposed to 2Mb, 4Mb and 20 in Q1), so you could say that the average cable speed on offer in the UK has increased by 23 per cent," said Oliver Johnson, CEO at Point Topic.

He went on to note that, with the gradual introduction of the 50Mb package trials, UK access speeds will climb more dramatically in the next few quarters.

Prices for cable have changed too, if you take an average across the 3 offerings they've gone down from £26.60

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to £25.60, Johnson pointed out.

For ADSL and ADSL2+, Point Topic's analysis across all operators highlighted a trend: in first quarter of this year, the average speed offered was 7.617 Mb/s, whereas the average monthly rental was £30.72. And by the third quarter, average speed had risen to 8.227 Mb/s, while the average monthly rental dropped to £29.80.

"So speeds have increased by eight per cent and prices have dropped by three per cent, marking a drop from £4.03/Mb to £3.62/Mb. This is comparable to other European countries and very competitive on a worldwide comparison," Johnson added.

On a global scale, Pont Topic found that fibre broadband leads the way when it comes to cost-effective bandwidth. The high speeds on offer over a fibre connection in countries where fibre has already been deployed extensively, showed some interesting findings.

1Mb of bandwidth costs just £0.60 per month in South Korea and can go as low as £0.29 in Japan. At the more expensive end the average charge in the Northern European grouping of Sweden, Denmark and Norway is £1.21/Mb and consumers pay £1.45/Mb in Hong Kong and China.

"Fibre is the best choice for the cost conscious consumer. It offers more bandwidth and monthly subscriptions are often even lower than DSL and cable services in the same markets," added Fiona Vanier, senior analyst at Point Topic.