Lo all, got to make a mini-news letter for uni about customers not getting the speeds they pay for. Does anyone out there know if there are any laws regarding the speed of broadband consumers should receive from there provider, e.g. paying for "upto 8mb" never getting above 4mb.

Thanks

Hobgob.

The words “up to” is your clue here. You could pay for an “up to 8mb” connection and only get 1 and you’d not have any recourse. Of course, if you didn’t raise a stink you’d deserve everything you don’t get, but the marketing folk are wily and slippery when it comes to selling their speeds.

Yes, saddly Ofcom have been a bunch of spinless idiots who've allowed the ISP's to use 'Up To' as a way of getting out of providing a decent service. The argument is something along the line of it being too complicated to give accurate speed estimates (because they'd have to be tiered by distance).
You might just manage to get something out of an ISP if you switch from a fixed rate serive (e.g. 2Mbs) to an Up To 8 product and get a slower speed but it seems very much to be at the whim of the ISP.

This is why I refused a free upgrade to an "up to 8Mb" connection. Too much uncertainty IMO. My 2Mb line is fine, stable and like everyone else's, only slows down in the early evening when everyone gets home from work.

New house, 1KM away has "up to" 16mbps VDSL, so will be interesting to see what I actually get, currently on an "upto 6mbps" contract, which gives me 2mbps

I could be wrong, but I don't think virgin use the dreaded "up to" phrase for their cable products??? If thats true, then it might be something you want to mention.

They do on their website

Bugger.

lol

Telling them you can get a better deal elsewhere and saying you want it matched works for me

If you're paying for a "less than 8Mbps" ADSL with a home contention ratio of 50:1 then you should get at least 500Kbps off peak and 160Kbps at busy times. A "less than 20Mbps" ADSL 2+ line with a business contention ratio of 20:1 might drop to 1Mbps at busy times.

A lot of people don't seem to understand quite what they are actually paying for when they buy an ADSL line. There are very good reasons why ADSL is so incredibly cheap compared to a leased line. If you want guaranteed bandwidth, then a leased line could be £500 a month with maybe £20,000 in excess installation charges depending on your location. I could do you an accurate quote if you give me your address and required bandwidth, because we sell them every day.

BT <8Meg ADSL lines (and hence all BT wholesale and LLU products) are considered acceptable if sync speeds are stable at over about 500K. Much less than that is considered a fault, but if you're on a long line then you may be offered a "best endeavor" option of take-it-or-leave-it. Obviously the laws of physics apply even to BT, and getting megabits of data down a 30 year old piece of copper never designed for the job is something of an art and the results simply can not be accurately predicted.

The contention ratio you pay for is important at peak times; basically when the kids get home from school. The reason ADSL is so very much cheaper than an uncontended line is down to the sharing of the bandwidth cost between customers, typically at 50:1 for a home product. That means at busy times you should expect to see only 2% of the headline speed; that's 160K for an "up to 8Meg" product. If you get more than that, then you're on a relatively quiet exchange and should consider yourself lucky.

Finally, if you're a high bandwidth user on an uncapped product then don't expect a supplier to try and keep you. You're probably costing them money and they'd be better off without you, unless you're in a package which means they get other money from you for phone calls or TV.