Internet service providers in Britain are defending their use of the term ‘up to’ in broadband advertising, claiming that every line is different and that basing marketing on ‘average’ speeds could damage the government’s plans for digital inclusion.
The news comes in response to research published by Ofcom earlier this week, which claims that very few consumers are able to get the headline speeds advertised by ISPs. The research revealed that just 14 percent of customers on ‘up to’ 20Mbps services received average download speeds of more than 12Mbps, while 58 percent received 6Mbps or less.
Ofcom is recommending that speeds used in broadband advertising should be based on a Typical Speeds Range (TSR), so consumers have a clearer idea of what speeds to expect, and that the TSR should be given at least equal prominence to any maximum ‘up to’ speed. A maximum speed should only be used if it is achievable in practice by “a material number of consumers”.
However several ISPs argue that using a single ‘average’ speed for advertising is just as meaningless as promoting ‘up to’ speeds, because the speed of a connection depends on many factors, including home wiring, the applications being used and where in the UK people live.
“As speeds get higher factors which previously did not matter, such as the software in the TCP stacks at each end, the load on the sending server, the latency on the link, and the impact of low levels of packet loss, can have more and more noticable effects. In many cases what an end user sees as ‘slow’ can be a latency issue or a DNS problem and not a line speed issue at all.”
Meanwhile John Petter, managing director of BT Retail, raised the issue that forcing ISPs to advertise average speeds could damage efforts by the government to roll out 2Mbps broadband to all British homes by 2015.
“Enforcing typical speed ranges is also dangerous as it could encourage more ISPs to cherry pick customers who will increase their average, leaving customers in rural and suburban areas under-served,” Petter told BBC News.
Other ISPs were quick to defend their own advertising practices. Plusnet said it offered customers a personalised speed range for their area, and TalkTalk touted its new Speed Checker service. Virgin Media, which achieved the best results in Ofcom’s average download speed tests, predictably welcomed the results.
“Ofcom’s latest report is yet another damning indictment that consumers continue to be treated like mugs and misled by ISPs that simply cannot deliver on their advertised speed claims,” said Jon James, executive director of broadband at Virgin Media.
This is not the first time that ISPs have been criticised for advertising unrealistic download speeds. In July 2010, Ofcom admonished ISPs for or continuing to advertise speeds which consumers were not able to receive.
“If consumers pay for a Ferrari-style Internet service, they should not get push bike speeds,” said Robert Hammond, head of post and digital communications at Consumer Focus, at the time. “Broadband users should get what they pay for.”
The Advertising Standards Authority has also waded into the debate, as well as the Institute of Commercial Management. Both are concerned that misleading broadband advertising is confusing British consumers.
Meanwhile, a recent poll by website ISP Review found that more than two thirds (68.8 percent) of UK Internet users would be put off from buying a new house if it lacked a fast broadband connection.
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Over the years i have used multiple internet connections to download file, mp3's, video's, games and stream video clips. In all of these connections which were advertised as "Up to 20mbps" i have only seen up to 1 Mbps and an average of around 250kbps which is only double that off 128k dial up.
People who pay for 50mbps speeds which cost £40.00+ each month are being ripped off because that is the maximum possible on that line under specific circumstances. Youd need to be the only person using the entire line and even then you might not get those speeds.
You need to take into account many variables which include:
1. The PC you use.
2. Distance from your router.
3. Type of router.
4. do you connect to a hub which is connected to your router.
5. Type of hub used.
6. When downloading how fast is the server that hosts the file your downloading or streaming.
7. length of cable connecting your pc to the broadband.
8. did the technician cut corners when installing the line, this can limit speeds but actually meets standards.
9. are your cables wired properly away from external power lines.
10. the software used on your computer.
11. the hardware used within your computer.
12. in-built ethernet connections on a motherboard or dedicated network card.
the list goes on and all of this list is over looked and ignored when presenting "up to" speeds which are usually tested in a lab under optimum situations.
My advice never get anything more than 20mbps because the infastructure in england simply cannot support these speeds let alone 50mbps.
unless your willing to fork out 100's of pounds per month for dedicated lines which are usually supplied to companies.
They should show a list of averages for every single town and every single location in england and clearly explain the minimum average and maximum people can expect.
ISP's should also take installation further into the home rather than leaving it up to un-informed novices to install and create their own networks which is bound to impact speed and reliability.
Instead of paying peanuts and hiring monkeys to install the broadband cables they should hire professionally trained and skilled network technicians with a minimum CCNA CISCO qualifications so they understand what the hell their doing.
I have DSL and it is advertised to be a 6mbps speed. I usually average around half of that speed. Funny thing is that I used to have 20mbps speed through another smaller provider (and pulled almost the full 20) on the same wiring at the same house. Interesting how that works eh?
Unlike these guys who have been ripped off by paltry millibits-per-second(!) I have always had close to the advertised Megabits-per second. My last provider advertised up to 8Mbps and my line regularly came in at about 6.5. After finding out that BT had upgraded cables in the area I did a speed test on their site and found that the lines could now support up to 20Mbps. So I ditched my previous ISP who couldn't offer a service higher than 8 and now I'm enjoying speeds on average of 18.7-19.1
"However several ISPs argue that using a single ‘average’ speed for advertising is just as meaningless as promoting ‘up to’ speeds, because the speed of a connection depends on many factors, including home wiring, the applications being used and where in the UK people live."
So the ISPs admit their max speed claims are meaningless?
Like many others I work in IT and used to arrange home broadband connections. NOT ONE SINGLE person I have arranged a line for has EVER achieved more than 75% of the max possible speed quoted by the ISP.
the term up to should be banned from isp's and an exact speed must be given to prevent them decieving us intenet users,i'll bet a grand that all day every day every single isp is ripping someone off in the uk and they should be forced to give the exact speed not up to accounting only for 10% of their customer base.It's technicaly the allowance of legal fraud.They should be made to record signing up customers calls with exact spoeed given and matching their paper contract.If they fail to match the 2 together the verbal and written contract the customer should be allowed to quit for breach of contract as that is what it is clearly,and the provider should then be dragged into a public court room charged with obtaining money by deception as this is what it is.I'll guarentee every customer that does'nt run a speed check is being ripped off at some point and ofcom are an appauling group they work for the isp and against the public by allowing the isp the ability to provide only 10% of the up to designation,they clearly do no work to help the public and charge for complaint calls,they should be fired from the isp monitoring and the citizens advice should be the ones to take over as they are clearly more for the public not the fat cats.
Also random checks should be made via a warrant granting access to a monitoring service to check if a digital switch is being thrown to cut down user speeds unlawfully at any exchabge server they wish,and the isp should again then be prosecuted for obtaining money by deception if this is found to be the case,they have gotten away with all this up to horse sh@t for to long now and it's all an excuse to rip us off,i have seen 10's of people with pathetic speeds and there is no case or reason for it barr the "we can get away with it because ofcom says we can" attitude incorporated by every isp in britain.The idea of exact speeds makes for a fairer and far more honest service from all isp's.