Date: Monday, August 6, 2007

Broadband providers attacked over speed claims

Broadband providers have come under attack over claims that their connection speeds are not as fast as they say they are.

Internet service providers (ISPs) such as Bulldog, have come under fire following a report by consumer magazine Which? showing that the speeds providers are claiming their service can provide are inaccurate. Advertisements claiming that connections can reach speeds of up to 8Mbps (megabits per second) have been criticised by watchdog the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), who ruled that providers must make it clear that connection speeds depend on the distance consumers live from the telephone exchange. Other factors found to also affect the speed of the connection were the amount of houses the exchange is servicing, the length and gauge of the line from the exchange to a home, electromagnetic ‘noise’ from other devices in your home, and the modem being used.

Tests on 300 consumers’ broadband packages that claimed to operate at 8Mbps produced readings as low as 0.09 Mbps in some cases, an average of 2.7Mbps, and only 6.9Mbps at best. One service provider BT said that if consumers wanted to receive the full 8Mbps they would have to live almost on top of the exchange. Customers seem largely resigned to this fact analyst firm Point Topic says, and know that they are not likely to get high-speed internet in the near future. However so many customers have complained about the speed of their internet connections that Which? has asked Ofcom to investigate the service providers’ claims. BT is creating the potential to reach much greater speeds than even 8Mbps with their 21st Century Network (21CN) programme, which will allow for speeds of up to 24Mbps from 2008. At the moment ISPs have been ordered to provide authentic information about the speeds their connections are likely to reach, and to only claim they can reach speeds of ‘up to 8Mbps’ if it is probable they will speeds close to this amount.

Source: BBC News