The average broadband download speed is less than half of the “up to” speeds that are advertised by some broadband providers.
Ofcom were submitting their findings to the Committee for Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee for Advertising Practice (BCAP) over the advertising of broadband speeds investigation that is being undertaken to try and make it clearer to consumers what broadband speeds they are likely to receive when signing up to an broadband package.
Ofcoms findings were mainly attached to broadband that is delivered via a phone line as this form of receiving broadband tends not to bring the potential of the advertised “up to” speeds. It was found that in November/December 2010 the average broadband speed was 6.2Mb which is less than half of the advertised broadband speed of 13.8Mb.
The study looked not only at copper based ADSL services but also fibre and cable services too. The copper based ADSL services are the ones which bring the biggest difference between advertised and actual broadband speeds. The average download speed for an advertised “up to” 20/24Mb ADSL broadband service which uses copper cable to deliver the broadband was just 6.2Mb, this is just 29sp% of the advertised up to speed. “Up to” 8Mb ADSL services produced an average broadband speed of 3.4Mb which is just 42% of the advertised “up to “speed.
A tiny 3% of customers on an “up to” 20/24Mb advertised broadband package received over 16Mb!
BT’s Fibre To The Cabinet service (BT Infinity) which uses fibre optic cable to the street side cabinet and then standard copper telephone lines to the customers house produced much closer speeds between the advertised “up to” and the actual speeds. BT advertises it’s BT Infinity service at “up to” 40Mb, the results of the broadband speed tests performed produced average broadband speeds of 31.1Mb which is 78% of the advertised speed.
Finally Cable services from Virgin Media which use fibre optic cable to the street side cabinet and then coaxial cable to the premises have advertised “up to” speeds of 50Mb broadband and the average download speed received was 46Mb and on average delivered between 90-96% of the advertised speeds.
Ofcom are suggesting that a Typical Speed Range (TSR) that is actually achievable to at least half of customers should be used when advertising broadband speeds.
Ofcom has produced a Typical Speed Range that it thinks broadband providers should use when advertising broadband speeds.
What is positive to take from the results is that how much faster fibre broadband is and that it can bring much more stable and reliable broadband to customers.
The reason Virgin are running this campaign will be because being a cable broadband provider they are the least affected by a big difference between their advertised broadband speeds and actual broadband speeds delivered to customers compared to standard DSL broadband providers.