Say Good bye to “up to speeds” warns Ofcom

The communications regulator in the UK, Ofcom’s research reveals that the consumers in the country are provided with 22% faster broadband speeds when compared to the broadband speeds of 12 months back.

In November last year the actual average broadband speed received by residences in the UK was 7.6 Mbps whereas it was only 6.2 Mbps in November/December 2010 and 6.8 Mbps in May 2011. Most of the consumers moved to high speed packages. About 58% of the residential broadband connections in the UK had an advertised speed of 10 Mbps for the first time in November 2011.

It is interesting to note that 4 out of 10 broadband consumers still remain on packages offering broadband speeds of 10 Mbps or less at a time when they could switch over to some other providers offering higher speeds with a little or no money spent extra.

Changes to advertised speeds
To assess the performance of residential broadband in the country, Ofcom has presented its sixth report of UK broadband speed. Previous reports of the regulator emphasized on the remarkable difference between advertised broadband speeds and the actually received broadband speeds. As a result of this variation, the Advertising Code-writing bodies, the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) and the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), are pressed into service to review the use of the term “up to” speed claims usually found in the broadband advertisements to cheat consumers.

After the review, the advertising Code-writing bodies, BCAP and CAP published guidance on the use of speed claims in broadband advertisement in September 2011 which would come into effect in April 2012. As per the guidance, speed claims must be achievable by at least 10% of the concerned ISP customer base. If a sizeable proportion of consumers are not getting the speed close to what was advertised, the speed obtainable by those customers should be mentioned in the advertisement.

Accordingly, for services currently advertised at ‘up to’ 8 Mbps the availability criteria would be 6 Mbps and for services currently advertised at ‘up to’ 20/24 Mbps the availability should be 14 Mbps. The advertisements should have supplement headline speed claims with information like median speed or the speed received by half of the customers around the area.

Differences between Internet Service Providers
Ofcom’s research found that out of the 13 ISP packages, the fastest are fibre-based and cable broadband technologies. The highest average download speeds of 49 Mbps is provided by Virgin Media. BT Infinity, BT’s fibre-based service currently delivers an average download speed of 36 Mbps which was 34 Mbps in May 2011 and the highest average upload speed is 8.8 Mbps. The changes in other ISP packages after May 2011 are negligible.

Broadband speeds Code of Practice
Ofcom has considered that it is its duty to ensure that consumers are given the access to have information about the broadband speed they receive. In December 2008 The Voluntary Code of Practice on Broadband Speeds was introduced by Ofcom with a view to inform customers about the maximum speed they could expect from providers before they sign up to a service. In July 2011 a strengthened Code came in to existence. Of late Ofcom commissioned mystery shopping to see that all ISPs are adhering to the Code of Practice and its findings would be published in the Spring.

Mr. Ed Richards, Ofcom’s Chief Executive said that it is interesting to note that consumers are having enough choice of broadband service and that the broadband speeds are increasing. Consumers are given an opportunity to evaluate different packages and to choose the best deal which would guarantee the best value, speeds and service to them. He added that the broadband speeds in the UK would increase further in the coming years. Currently most households in the UK are provided with super fast broadband services and they would get even better speeds when Virgin Media completes its work of doubling the speeds of its cable services and BT’s plan of doubling the speeds of it’s FTTC service from 40 Mbps to 80 Mbps becomes a reality.