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UK ISPs under fire for false advertising
Author: Tim SmalleyPublished: 2nd August 2007
Either the UK's tubes are clogged, or UK ISPs just aren't delivering broadband Internets at ludicrous speed...
Many broadband Internet service providers are promising speeds of 8Mbps, but following numerous complaints from the public who were unhappy with the speeds of their Internets, Which? went about testing 272 consumer’s connections over a two week period.
The results weren’t pretty and showed a huge discrepancy between advertised speed and actual speed, with the average download speed being only 2.7Mbps.
Of course, if you read the small print on most agreements you’ll realise that it’s not a guaranteed 8Mbps – it’s advertised as “up to 8Mbps”. You’d think that at the guy sitting right outside the exchange would get a maximum of 8Mbps, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately not, as the highest speed reached on all of the lines tested during the two week period was only 6.7Mbps.
Even worse was the fact that some consumers who had paid for an “up to 8Mbps” service were experiencing speeds that dropped as low as 0.09Mbps, or 90Kbps, which isn’t even twice as fast as dial-up.
It's not all that bad though, as those signing up to services with lower promised speeds, like 1Mbps or 2Mbps, got a much better deal. Average speeds of 0.8Mbps and 1.3Mbps were recorded for 1Mbps and 2Mbps connections respectively, while the maximum speed recorded on both connection speeds was the promised transfer rate. This means that only punters signing up for higher speeds are getting a raw deal.
“When terms such as ‘up to’ are used, it can be difficult to prove that advertisements are false or misleading. None the less, we’re concerned that Which?’s findings seem to show that claimed speeds are not possible or are very unlikely to be achieved,” said Richard Webb, a trading standards spokesman in response to Which?’s findings.
A BT spokesman told BBC News that “Virtually no-one will get [8Mbps broadband]. The laws of physics start applying as soon as it leaves the exchange and you would have to live on top of the exchange to get the full 8 megabits.” Interestingly, only one in ten of the Which? members surveyed thought that a broadband service advertised as “up to 8Mbps” actually thought they’d get that speed.
An analyst from Point Topic believes that the reason for this is that people are resigned to the fact that they’re not going to get high-speed broadband soon.
Are you happy with your Internet service provider and connection? Share your experiences with us in the forums.
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Comments (73)
What do I actually get? 0.5Mbps. It's not the fault of my ISP, but due to the fact I live right on the very edge of where the exchange reaches. Another few hundred yards, no broadband for me.
All I can say is to haggle prices with your ISP if you can't get full speeds, tell them you'll leave etc, and almost all will give an incentive to keep you.
Mind you, least we're not still stuck with dial-up. *shudders*
My connection speeds:
DownStream Connection Speed 896 kbps
UpStream Connection Speed 448 kbps
Sam
@samkiller42 you're getting near 8mb. Remember the company gives you speeds in bits and your connection software will measure in bytes. 10meg from NTL = 1.1mbs of the web max.
i dont really know too much about the differences other than our virgin broadband enters the house on a big chunky coax cable and goes to a cable modem and a equivalent ADSL service comes in through shitty bell wire used for the telephones.
isnt NTL's cable split off from a optical cable or something like that? there must be some reason why i get near as makes no difference the 4Mbps we pay for every month (except when we go over that new limit virgin imposed where they chop your connection to half speed for the night....not that its much of a hinderance at that time like).
if i can find a decently fast server i can usually max out my connection at around 450 to 480kb/s. in theory 4mbps should give 512kb/s a second but obviously every system has in-efficiencies.
8mbps would be a connection speed of 8192kbps not 896kbps. He's getting about 1/10 of the advertised speed.
I always thought that monopolies were illegal - but obviously not in Hull!
BT have also switched the line over in the village to 21CN for calls about 2 months ago, although I din't think they're activating the broadband side of it until later on
If you're connecting through ADSL, check your line attenuation in your router:
60db and above = 512kbps
41db and above = 1 Mbps
Below 41db = 2Mbps and faster.
I can't remember what the attenuation figures are for 4Mbps, etc.
Speed Calculator, pop in the figures from your router, it'll give you a ballpark figure. If you connect a lot lower than this, it's time to talk to the ISP.
Pah I get 8mb and I dont sit on the exchange, am about a mile or so away at least I am able to download at over 800Kb/sec with no issues
Because that would be false advertising. The current ADSL equipment is capable of speeds up to 8mb/s though. It's not the ISPs fault really just a limitation of the technology available.
I'm just looking forward to FTTH/FTTC
Fastest download i've ever had was 3mbs.
But, as i'm a High Use user, and download over their 'fair' use policy, I get my bandwidth further resctricted during 5-11pm every day.
So, I get download speeds of 20kbs between those hours.
The annoying thing, They sent me the letters saying I was a high use user after being with them for only 1 week of the 12 month contract, and I actually had only downloaded 1 xbox live 600mb demo in that week - as my PC didnt even work! - so hardly un-fair.
I'll be leaving as soon as the contract is up.
If BT got up off their arse and introduced a FTTC network, we wouldn't be in situations like these. But the ISPs get the flak, when I'd imagine 99% of the time it's nothing to do with them. Congratulations to Which? on another stand-up attempt at providing an appropriate test for something.
Which? lost all respect when they started pitting crappy Kodak digital compacts against Nikon DSLRs and voting for the Kodak - "Reviewed by, A. Monkey"
When it came time to upgrade the infrastructure though, some ISP somewhere decided to include the overheads in the figure, and thus start claiming "up to 8 MB" when the actual max connection speed is about 6.7mb as mentioned here. Once one of them started doing it the others weren't going to be left behind so they all started doing it.
What makes it worse is the advertising standards people say if theres a problem with speeds its not there fault - its the jurisdiction of the telecoms watchdog and the telecoms watchdog of course says its an advertising issue the buck just isn't stopping.
Issue number two is that the bulk of service providers these days are looking to cram as many users into a given capacity as possible and work on the assumption that people will only want a fraction of there connection averaged over time, so when you get people who actually use the lines, you find there isn't nearly enough available bandwidth for everyone to get near there supposed top speed.
Line distance as mentioned already by others is another issue - in the past a lot of people who get broadband are close enough for 1mb or 2mb, but start hitting line degradation well before "8mb"
one final thing that the "up to 8mb" technology has introduced is that with the 8mb tech's focus being on getting as much speed as possible from a line, reliability for some drops compared to the older services which were focused on reliability and consistency and didn't push the line as hard (giving more room for error)
Its all a bit of a mess really.
that was always advertised as 56k despite the problem that it was physically impossible to get that speed in the real world, only in ideal, short-length laboratory conditions. I never saw a dialup connection go faster than 50k ;) it was usually at around the 45k mark
ADSL also depends on the line quality a lot, i used to be on an 8meg service that could connect at around 4-5meg, but was only actually stable if limited to 2-3meg at the exchange due to the poor quality of my phone line.
I'm now on 4meg cable and very happy... i get a perfectly stable 4meg connection with it :)
ps we have a couple of isps that lie their ass off to in ads but not as bad as that.
When I went to cancell a few months back they said I could keep the same package for £9,99. However I now have slow conecetion and wish I cancelled.
When I check my router, some days it is conected at 7mb and others its 8mb. I now can barely get web pages to open as the internet is so slow and its getting worse. I have a suposedly 8mb connection but its slower than dialup. I can do PC gaming anymore because of the lagg where as both me and my bro used to play together online with no lag. When we lived in a student house a few years back there were 8 of use sharing a 1mb connection fine for gaming and now 1 of us struggle on a 8mb going solo.
I do speed tests and I am currently getting comparable with 512kb. My upload speed is almost spot on with my download speed now.
What can I do???? Im paying for 8mb getting 512kb and stuck in a new 12 month contract
its 8192 kilobits and he recieves 896 kilobytes = 7168 kilobits
Its like the 100gig HDD is actually about 93 gigabytes due to the 1000, 1024 conversion thingy
but seriously, every add has "UP TO" stamped on it, and has for ages. those that don't understand that should go back to dial up :p as they are the ones that no doubt have tones of bots/spyware on their pcs
Unfortunately all this VM business has slowed it down quite a bit due to oversubscribing.
Sam ive been having the same problems with BT i upgraded to the 8MB connection about 3 months ago. And only once got 368kbps the rest of the time it would be like 50-100kbps. I got fed up with the speed and random line drop outs i live about 400 meters from the exchange. I wrote questions to the help desk and never got a reply. So i went direct not phoning them due to i cant deal with Indians telling me things ive done over and over. I emailed telling them that ive only had 50-100kbps since i upgraded, I took a screen shot of there speed test result which showed it below standards. And basicly told them if there is know improvement with in 2 days i will be asking for a refund. By 4pm that day i had a call i told them ive done everything there going to ask me to do and its your end. Seems to have kicked them in to gear as my connection has got faster by the day. Checked this morning and i was getting close to 700kbps.
p,s Get rid of the home nub if you have one.
It was only a couple of months ago I had a good 8mb service and when i wanted to cancell to try BT as it was cheaper, they said stay and have 8mb for £10, so i said ok then. Since then the internet has been slow and I can not play games and its because they have limited me.
So when they said stay to have 8mb unlimited for £10 they were really selling my 512kb unlimited for £10.
Cancellation lines are closed so ill have to call tomorrow to cancell.
They are right in its unlimited downloads but the speed you download is not unlimited. I see that is how they get around the upto 8mb, its so they can change your speed when they feel like it to save money and make more.
Im not happy.
samkiller42 said 896kbps, not 896kBps. b = bits, B = bytes. Also he said connection speeds, not download speeds
You'd be lucky to get 448 kilobytes per second upload speed on ADSL as it currently stands ;)
You can end your contract prematurely with Tiscali with no cancellation charge if you break their fair usage policy three times. They then allow you to get your MAC for free :)
That's wrong I'm afraid, he's quoting kbps. That's bits per second. Bytes is a B, so 8kbps = 1kBps.
He's being shafted by his ISP as far as I'm concerned, and he's right to be unhappy with the speed.
EDIT - Damn you Stevey, too fast for me.
Now it is you who has you bits and bytes muddled i'm sorry to say. 10meg will be in reference to 10Mb/s (10 Mega-bits per second) which equates to around about 1.1MB/s (Mega-Bytes per second).
I'm with VM right now too with the 10Mb pack which should actually be 20Mb by now but for some reason the modem isn't downloading the 2048 - 768 config file when it reboots *sigh* not that i expected it to all work smoothly now that Virgin are calling the shots
Admittedly I was messing around in WMP11 at the same time, but bah.
On topic though, although the ISPs advertise high speed packages, there's always a disclaimer stating that the speed depends on line quality etc. So if anyone's going to get criticised, surely it should be whoever's in charge of the line the data travels through, ISP bashing seems mostly pointless unless haggling is involved.
I can honestly say vm is shite I know 4 people who live 7-8 miles away from each other that all get 500kbps -1meg connection from 4-12pm although all are on 4meg or above connections and all but 1 doesn't download much. If you want to complain they all say it's upto 4 meg (or whatever connection you are on), even on they own network. Richard Branston has sold his brand down the river by given his name to the NTL monkeys.
Like the member said before, Im from the land that the internet forgot too, namely Hull. We have no choice of provider whatsoever, we have to use Karoo (Kingston Communications).
All they offer are 4 levels of the new so called 'Max' service its the most inappropriate name ever. :(
The theory is the higher the level you're on (i.e. the more you pay the higher priority you get, and hence faster speeds).
Well im on priority 4 (the highest), costs about £30 a month.
Dont think i've EVER got above 450 KB/s download, its throttled to high heaven, you can only get full speed (if you can call it that) during off peak (midnight - 7am).
During peak times you literally get oldschool 0.5Mb speeds if your lucky.
What i'd do for a bloody choice of ISP.
just to inform the other 'hullian':
I have a bit of experience in this area, technically its not a monopoly. In most of the country BT own the lines, they then in turn rent them out / let other companies use them for a fee, which is what happens when someone wants broadband/telephone from another provider. In Hull, however, the lines are all owned by KC, whilst companies can rent their lines no-one wants to because its not worth it, KC put the prices so high its unprofitable to do so, while technically not a monopoly, devious tactics nonetheless.
Its better than it was, up until under a year ago we just had 512, 1m, 2m, 3m. The only decent speed, the 3 meg service was ~£40. Anyways thats all you lot filled in on hull.
I've just checked my line attenuation thing and I'm hitting the limits download speed... just shy of 4Mbits/sec. But I have 22dB of space left in my upload speed so I should be able to have 1.5Mbit/sec up... which would be nice!
Crippling people's connections is the main problem as far as I'm concerned. I fully understand the limits of the line. But to down to 512K for the main time of day I actually use the internet is utterly ridiculous and thievery. Before upgrading to "maxdsl" I used to be able to have a completely, 100% stable speed of 2Mbit/sec 24-7. I live in a village of old people. There isn't some massive load increase on the switch gear in the local exchange. They limit it because ISP's don't want to spend money on actually dealing with the traffic properly doing the requisite constant upgrades... so they stop the customers from using the services they pay for to save cash.
still pricey imo, since i have to pay line retal on the phone like, and i dont even have a phone.
verizon FiOS may be fast but its throttled and even blocks some traffic completely (bittorrent)
I'm with Comcast and get 9638 kbps down, 2365 kbps up
mate, I had that same problem. Just call them, demand to be put throught to their disconnections team. Explain to them that you were mis-sold. If they wont do anything tell them you will have to report it to trading standards and OFCOM. It took me an hour or so to do it but they eventually gave me my MAC.
its not the fastest ever, though it is what it is advertised.
unfortunately at school we have been sharing a 10meg line between about 2000ppl, it really crawls :(
Ive not heard any thing good about sky broadband to be honest.
Sam
I did actually just copy the information stright from the router config (Netgear), It wasnt made up.
Here is more information:
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 896 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 63.5 db 31.5 db
Noise Margin 9.7 db 13.0 db
To me that is all garble as i dont understand any of it other than the connection speed.
Sam
Anyway with BT's competence I'm surprised any of us have broadband at all
I'm on an "Up to 8mb" plan and people have estimated i would get 4mb, but i get about 2mb max, when BT aren't throttling the connection that is (because, ofc they cant actually supply everyone with the speed they pay for because they are too cheap to put in the infrastructure)
I can understand the "up to 8mb" line though, its hard to send out an ad to people who could live 1 meter from the exchange, or 10 miles from the exchange
However, when you phone up to decide, they can give you an estimate on your actual possible line speed
To be honest samkiller42, that's as fast as you're going to get at the moment with a line attenuation as high as that. Above 60db, you're basically looking at 512kbps, so the fact you get that is pretty damn impressive. All I can suggest is to make sure that your router is plugged into your master socket, that you have good adsl filters, and that's about all you can do.
With figures like that, the max that line will give you is 965kbps, and that probably wouldn't be stable either.
though I would just like to point out that my download speed is 56352 kb/s.
That's right.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/164833695.png
In all respects. OWNED
I have a good connection with them, just under 7meg on the 8meg package, since November I have had one downtime of a couple of hours.
P2P traffic is heavily shaped/throttled, but if you are using bit-torrent, encryption solves that.
All I can say is that from my experience they have been good, although cust service is not an issue for me (internal email)
The thing with Sky, is the same with any ISP it all depends on your line attenuation i.e. internal wiring and distance from the exchange.
If I were to recommend anyone else it would be Nildram, I was with them before Sky and they were as close to perfect as I have experienced.
So who is your ISP then?
:( sticker for you but thats only 7044kBs..... Wait 7meg of the web is great, how'd you get that!?
From the speed meter in his post it looks like UKerna whoever they are.
between 16:00 to 00:00
2mb/4mb/20mb service
if you download- 350mb/750mb/3gb
it goes down to 1mb/2mb/5mb for 4 hrs from when its trigered (including if as started at 23:59 it last 4 hrs)
on 2mb service it be very annoying, 4mb not so much but you have to consider how much you can still download on 20mb 130gb at least an day you do 2gb/5gb/40gb on some/most ISP you get charged per gb or get the internet speed droped to modem speeds or lose your internet connection
ADSL is hit and miss and if i moved house i ask locals to see what internet speeds i got if i did need high speed bb not you 2mb stuff or make sure you got cable around thay can guaranty 2/4 or 20mb bb due to cables that come strate to your house
United Kingdom Education and Research Networking Association
AKA a university connection :)