More than a third of Which? members now have broadband packages offering speeds of ‘up to’ 8Mbps or faster. However a speed test with more than 300 customers of 27 different ISPs (http://www.which.co.uk/
Broadband speed is advertised as ‘up to’ because it can be affected by many factors including the time of day, how far the phone line has to stretch to the telephone exchange and the contention ratio – the maximum number of people sharing the same connection to the exchange.
The Advertising Standards Agency says that using the words ‘up to’ is acceptable if most people can get close to those speeds. But which.co.uk (http://www.which.co.uk ) says that the advertised broadband speeds can be misleading and wants Ofcom and Trading Standards to investigate providers’ claims.
The which.co.uk test results are published alongside its twice-yearly ISP satisfaction survey (http://www.which.co.uk/
Malcolm Coles, Editor, which.co.uk, says:
“It’s shocking that internet service providers can advertise ever-increasing speeds that seem to bear little resemblance to what most people can achieve in reality. If it’s unlikely you’ll reach the advertised speed it should be made clear up front, so that you know with some certainty what you’re buying.
“Do your research to check what speed you’re likely to get before upgrading, and if you think what you’re getting differs vastly from what you’ve paid for, speak to your provider – or if they won’t help, report them to Ofcom.”
