News
Broadband speeds in the dock
Ben Furfie October 11, 12:29pm
OFCOM speaks to companies over concerns customers are being misled about the service they receive
Six of the largest broadband providers are being asked to explain to telecoms regulator OFCOM, why customers rarely receive speeds advertised.
The companies, who are being represented by their bosses at the consumer panel, are being quizzed on the issue after Computeractive magazine revealed that 62 per cent of the 3,000 readers who took part in a speed test were receiving less than half of the advertised speed.
The panel wants to force the companies to give customers more information so that they are not misled about speeds. It also has several proposals on how the broadband companies could achieve that.
"We believe that broadband customers are not at the moment getting enough information," said Colette Bowe, chairwoman of the Ofcom Consumer Panel.
She did however concede in a letter to the firms that she acknowledged there were technical reasons behind some of the speeds, however, warned that it was no excuse for misleading consumers.
Two of the suggestions include extending the length of time before a contract has to be signed so that customers can experience the speed they are receiving. She also put forward proposals that would allow consumers to cancel their contacts with their service providers if the speed they were receiving was far below the advertised speed.
The news follows research by analyst firm Point Topic that found less than half of the population is in a position to benefit from the full 8Mbps oft advertised by many firms.
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Comments
“MANAGER”
Posted by: ANDREW TORDOFF - October 11, 2:10pm
I WAS SOLD 16MB SKYBROADBAND AND CAN ONLY RECIEVE 3MB
“Up to 7Mbps”
Posted by: Thomas Shababi - October 11, 4:12pm
As ADSL MAX is a Rate adaptive product, its understandable how people can be mislead with broadband speeds.
However... There is no excuse for advertising ADSL MAX as an up to 8Mbps Service, as infact, even when synced at the highest possible rate a maximum speed of 7150kbit/s is acheievable as this is the highest BRAS profile on ADSL MAX.
“Re: Up to 7Mbps”
Posted by: Graham Thomas - October 11, 9:26pm
all BT subscribers in the village of Bucknell, Shropshire were receiving a worse service than an ordinary dial-up for months this summer. BT refused to acknowledge a general problem - or wasn't aware of it and kept consumers jumping through the usual hoops validating own systems, etc, but eventually some equipment in the local exchange was replaced and - wonder of wonders - everybody started receiving a proper broadband service again. Typical careless, thoughtless, customers' time/money/ effort doesn't matter response to a widely reported system fault. BT not clever enough to co-ordinate customer complaints and realise that this it is telling them something about the performance of their system. How do such amateurs get to run a major network? When is somebody going to enforce some rigour and make these people pay when they get it seriously wrong?