Broadband service providers asked to follow new advertising codes

Broadband service provides ‘O2’ and ‘TalkTalk’ claim to provide speeds of 20 Mb and 24 Mb respectively. But they cannot advertise accordingly any more, as per the instructions of self regulatory code bodies, the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP). The new guidance will be coming into force from April this year.

As per the guidance, the advertised speeds of the service providers must be available by for at least 10 % of the customers.

They service providers are also asked to modify the advertisement if a sizable number of customers are not able to get the mentioned speed.

The highest average download speed of Virgin Media is 49 Mbps. In comparison BT with its fiber optic service is able to give a speed of only 36 Mbps.

The broadband provides must specifically mention the achievable speed. They cannot advertise like “up to 20/24 Mb”.

According to Ofcom, the average residential broadband speed in the UK in November 2011 was 7.6 Mbps, which is about 20% more than that achieved during the same month in 2010.

Ofcom has observed that 40% of the customers settle for speeds of 10 Mbps or less even though they can opt for better speeds at a slightly higher cost.

58% of the customers got a speed of more than 10 Mbps in November whereas the figure was 48% in May.

Ed Vaizey, the communications minister is very particular that the UK must have the best broadband service in Europe. He wants that the whole population must get at least 24 Mbps broadband by 2015.