Britons confused about their broadband, says survey

Following up on a report by Ofcom that UK broadband subscribers only get half of their promised speeds, comparison shopping site Broadband Genie today says not only are connections slower, but subscribers don't know what they're paying for.

Using the Thinkbroadband speed test, Broadband Genie surveyed customers of the top 8 UK broadband suppliers, asking what broadband package they subscribe to and what the promised speeds are. Like Ofcom's report (PDF here) which said Britain's average downlink speed is 3.6 Mbps of a promised 7.2 Mbps, the data showed that the average actual downlink speed for UK customers is 45.8% of the advertised speed limit.

That percentage of 16,000 tested connections, however, can only be considered an estimation at best. Because the test cannot detect which package customers are subscribing to, Broadband Genie had to go by what customers thought they were paying for, which proved to be wrong in a number of cases.

For example, some testers who subscribed to Virgin Media said they were paying for a 2 Mbps connection, but actually got results of 109% of their promised speed (about 2.2 Mbps.) Likewise, many Talk Talk customers who thought they were on a 2 Mbps connection recorded an average speed of 106% of the maximum (about 2.12 Mbps.)

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