How many get speeds close to advertised speeds?

[sean]

According to a report from Point Topic, only 15 percent of the customers who subscribe to 8MB broadband can get speeds close to the speeds advertised by the ISPs. It is even worse with 16 MB pacakges. Only 4 percent of the customers get speeds close to this maximum speeds.

The reports places Sky broadband on top for their reliable speeds, Virgin, Tiscali, AOL, TalkTalk and BT follow it in this order.

[Kate]

If only 4 percent of the subscribers get speed close to 16 MB, isn't wast of money to go for these packages? First of all, do we require that much speed? When you go for superfast broadband packages, first of all, the monthly cost will shoot up. As ADSL speeds are dependant on many factors, it is unlikely to get speeds close to the advertised speeds, unless you are so near to the exchange.

[Dionysis]

It seems cable broadband and high speed wireless broadband can be excellent solutions to get speeds close to what ISPs advertise. However, cable broadband has this downside: when there are more users on the cable line, it will slow down the speed. With wireless broadband, highspeed, reliable connections may not be available in many places. Higher monthly cost may also make many to think twice before sigining up to such packages.

Fibre based broadband, which is in many countries in Asia Pacific region may set breakthrough but only in future.