ISPs failed to deliver advertised speeds to over 15 million UK households
46 replies, posted
[URL]http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jun/18/15m-households-do-not-get-the-promised-broadband-speed[/URL]
[QUOTE]
Three quarters of British households aren’t getting the promised speeds on their broadband package according to research, which found the problem affects over 15 million households.
While 90% of those polled by Which? said speed was an important factor when choosing a provider, the consumer group found just 26% of households with fixed broadband connections were getting the speeds they were paying for.
Which? has launched a Give Us Broadband Speed Guaranteed campaign.
It found just 17% of homes received an average speed that matched the advertised level – and even fewer, 15%, managed this during the peak evening period.
Broadband users in the countryside are much more poorly served than those in urban areas. While 31% households in towns and cities were able to receive a maximum advertised speed, incredibly 98% of rural homes didn’t typically get the headline speed.
Advertising guidelines say only 10% of all customers need to achieve the maximum advertised speed but Which? found three packages that couldn’t even meet that. Only 4% of customers on TalkTalk’s 17Mbps package, and just 1% of people on BT and Plusnet’s 76Mbps deals, were getting the top advertised speeds.
[/QUOTE]
It's true. I live in rural Wales and we were guaranteed 8 Mb/s. It doesn't even reach this at 2 AM and packet loss is regular when somebody loads a website somewhere in the house. It is, however, not the ISP which is at fault for not allowing these speeds to not be achieved in most cases - although I do acknowledge the fault of ISPs in committing a service which they are not delivering. The telephone infrastructure is just so poor that there are issues like this and BT is not that fast when it comes to upgrading their infrastructure.
[img]http://www.speedtest.net/result/4444950214.png[/img]
Hopefully the Superfast Cymru initiative (and equivalents around the UK) stop being slow.
my internet used to be what it was advertised at but in the past year its slowly gone down to fuck all
You'd think there'd be a law against this stuff, it's proper false advertising when they promise high speeds on old technology.
Isn't 15 millions households... like, at least over half?
[editline]19th June 2015[/editline]
Never mind, article says it was about 74%.
I had this issue. I was promised 20 down and 1 up. Never got faster than 7 down and .6 up which us unforgivable and I challenged this numerous times.
I moved ISP recently and they promised me 80 down and 20 up and I get 75 down and 18 up which is pretty much what I was told I was going to be getting so hopefully they are cracking down on this sort of stuff now.
im advertised as getting 2mbps but i get 5mbps
arent i lucky
Don't they say "up to" anyway?
[QUOTE=Hugg;48005698]Don't they say "up to" anyway?[/QUOTE]
Yeah but I think the point is that it's a seemingly arbitrary number. They could put "Up to 5Tb/s" and hide behind the "up to" part when people are only getting 20Mb/s.
I'm on Virgin Media, and during the day I actually get the 20Mb/s I'm supposed to. Peak times however, I barely get 100Kb/s, and can just about buffer a 360p YT video.
It's blatantly obvious they've oversubscribed in my area and not done anything to facilitate more people using their shit.
[QUOTE=kapin_krunch;48006004]I'm on Virgin Media, and during the day I actually get the 20Mb/s I'm supposed to. Peak times however, I barely get 100Kb/s, and can just about buffer a 360p YT video.
It's blatantly obvious they've oversubscribed in my area and not done anything to facilitate more people using their shit.[/QUOTE]
I have the same problem with Sky, it has gotten to the point you can set your watch to the time the internet slows down to a crawl. During the day it is amazing, but starting late afternoon don't even bother.
I am with Virgin media and I am supposed to be getting 150MB/s but I hardly ever get 20MB/s most of the time it is like 5MB/s. I used to be with Sky but switched because they couldn't deliver the speeds either. When I first moved to Virgin Media I was paying for 60MB/s and got what I paid for but since then they have upgraded everyone in our area for free to 15MB/s but in reality have completely butchered what we get now.
[QUOTE=kapin_krunch;48006004]I'm on Virgin Media, and during the day I actually get the 20Mb/s I'm supposed to. Peak times however, I barely get 100Kb/s, and can just about buffer a 360p YT video.
It's blatantly obvious they've oversubscribed in my area and not done anything to facilitate more people using their shit.[/QUOTE]
See this is where living in the middle of nowhere will come in handy once BT get off their useless arses and finally hook our exchange up with fibre.
cunts said we'd have it by Aug 2014
My internet in IE is 240 Mb.
But I am getting half of it, even less than half - 100 Mb.
I contacted my ISP but they said they can send technician free of charge, however - if it turns out it's my fault (like shitty cable which I bought from China) then I will have to pay callout fees.
[QUOTE=arleitiss;48006672][B]My internet in IE is 240 Mb.[/B]
But I am getting half of it, even less than half - 100 Mb.
I contacted my ISP but they said they can send technician free of charge, however - if it turns out it's my fault (like shitty cable which I bought from China) then I will have to pay callout fees.[/QUOTE]
?
[QUOTE=Hizan;48005406]It's true. I live in rural Wales and we were guaranteed 8 Mb/s. It doesn't even reach this at 2 AM and packet loss is regular when somebody loads a website somewhere in the house. It is, however, not the ISP which is at fault for not allowing these speeds to not be achieved in most cases - although I do acknowledge the fault of ISPs in committing a service which they are not delivering. The telephone infrastructure is just so poor that there are issues like this and BT is not that fast when it comes to upgrading their infrastructure.
[img]http://www.speedtest.net/result/4444950214.png[/img]
Hopefully the Superfast Cymru initiative (and equivalents around the UK) stop being slow.[/QUOTE]
I've got it fast in my county, but it's double the speed of where I used to live in the same county.
But we've got fibre optic in this area now as well.
So Wales is catching up fast.
[QUOTE=Hugg;48006711]?[/QUOTE]
ireland u dummy
Plusnet is actually treating me OK and I get slightly higher than advertised speeds, but at peak times it shoots down a fair bit. I'm still lucky as I'm in London, but it winds me up how companies advertise the product - they should be free to state the up to price, but should be required to give average speeds for customers on the subscription at peak times too. After all, we have laws requiring disclaimers on other forms of advertising, and internet connection is a vital utility these days, it affects employment, social life, education and more.
I've had nothing but issues with Sky, they promised 20MB down and 2MB up, I get around 1-2MB down and around 500Kb up.
I live about a mile away from a large town in East Anglia and get at most 250kb/s down.
Contacted my ISP (BT) about it and they said there is nothing that they can or will do and I have to move house to get better speeds.
First world.
Hey, 1 Up is still technically 'Up to 20'
We all deal with this shit
i seriously fucking hate this country's ISPs, BT and gigler are about as close as we're gonna get to good for now
[QUOTE=Hizan;48005406]It's true. I live in rural Wales and we were guaranteed 8 Mb/s. It doesn't even reach this at 2 AM and packet loss is regular when somebody loads a website somewhere in the house. It is, however, not the ISP which is at fault for not allowing these speeds to not be achieved in most cases - although I do acknowledge the fault of ISPs in committing a service which they are not delivering. The telephone infrastructure is just so poor that there are issues like this and BT is not that fast when it comes to upgrading their infrastructure.
[img]http://www.speedtest.net/result/4444950214.png[/img]
Hopefully the Superfast Cymru initiative (and equivalents around the UK) stop being slow.[/QUOTE]
Rural Scotland here, theoretically on a 10Mb line, lucky if we get 2Mb in the wee hours of the morning.
Yep, net infrastructure in the UK countryside needs to pull its finger out. While I've got about 38Mb down and 18Mb up, the capitol shouldn't be the only zone you can get such high speeds. Speeds like 3Mb down sound like the kind of internet you'd get in East Africa, not rural Great Britain.
Every ISP we've used in my area has been pretty ridiculous but EE has been by far the worse. According to the website, we're supposed to get (up to) 75 Mbits/s download
We used to get 8 Mbits/s. We now get barely 3 MBits/s. The connection is so unstable that I am often booted from PS4 parties even when no-one else is on the 'net, and the second someone is on the net you can literally feel it. The only stable part of the connection is the upload, which is a constant 0.56 Mbits/s
But this is the best choice we have right now. It's fucking awful.
Good god seeing those single digits is making me feel bad for you guys.
It's almost criminal how low those speeds are
My countys already rolled out their Superfast Broadband plan and my house is too far away from the nearest cabinet to actually benefit!
So its probably going to be another decade or something before the next Superfast rollout, might as well just use fucking 4G.
Seriously there isnt an excuse. We are a tiny country yet some areas still dont have even 2Mb broadband. Stop investing in unnecessarily fast home broadband in cities and get the rest of the country up to a decent speed.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;48016688]State should seize all internet infrastructure over this glorius fuckup and form the "Royal Internet Service" which should be 1 mbps and avaliable to everyone and everyone should pay exaggerate taxes for it even if they dont use it
Planned economy is the best, at least it is consistent[/QUOTE]
A picture of the Queen pops up first time you connect that day with a device and 'God Save the Queen' plays for at least 30 seconds unskippable obviously.
[QUOTE=Taggart;48016787]Every ISP we've used in my area has been pretty ridiculous but EE has been by far the worse. According to the website, we're supposed to get (up to) 75 Mbits/s download
We used to get 8 Mbits/s. We now get barely 3 MBits/s. The connection is so unstable that I am often booted from PS4 parties even when no-one else is on the 'net, and the second someone is on the net you can literally feel it. The only stable part of the connection is the upload, which is a constant 0.56 Mbits/s
But this is the best choice we have right now. It's fucking awful.[/QUOTE]
Agreed, both my Dad and my Girlfriend's family use EE and their download speeds are utter shit. It can sometimes take up to an hour or more to finish a 1GB download (Or several hours just to install a bunch of PS3 patches) whilst at home with Virgin Media I'm able to download Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (a 38GB download) within 2 hours.
I'm with Virgin Media and I've got absolutely no complaints. Our claimed speed is 100Mbit, we normally either get that or around 110Mbit. Peak times can bring us down to 50-70 or so but that's expected, explained and the 100Mbit is advertised as "up to", not guaranteed. Great when you're using a service that can actually max it out like Steam.
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