Fraudband Britain - Results
Thanks to all of you who carried out the speed test on your internet connection. We got almost 600 responses which we've now crunched - and it appears a great deal of people paying for high-speed internet aren't getting even half of the speed they signed up for. We'll investigate the data and the issues in the programme tomorrow.
The results don't give a full picture, since this obviously isn't a scientific survey. Doing the speed test at different times will lead to different results, and accessing the internet over wireless, or on a computer that is slow or has a badly set up firewall/antivirus can also affect the result. Nevertheless, the results are interesting, and broadly similar to findings .
Mark notes in the comments that it:
Seems from the data that you've already gathered that most people with up to 2Mb are getting roughly what they're promised.
If we're Fraudband Britain, the Fraud's being directed at people paying for the highest connection speed. Interesting business strategy - disappoint your highest revenue customers...
The final figures confirm Mark's suspicions - check out below the statistics for people paying for 8mbps compared to lower speed connections:
Advertised maximum speed: 1mbps
Attained (mean speed): 743.9179 kbps - 73% of maximum
Advertised maximum speed: 2mbps
Attained (mean speed): 1356.515 kbps - 66% of maximum
Advertised maximum speed: 4mbps
Attained (mean speed): 2666.743 kbps - 65% of maximum
Advertised maximum speed: 8mbps
Attained (mean speed): 2503.22 kbps - 31% of maximum
Advertised maximum speed: 10-24mbps
Attained (mean speed): 5830.826 kbps
Average speed of all respondents: 2205.077kbps
We've just spoken to Competitiveness Minister Stephen Timms and to the Internet Service Providers Association, and are hoping to speak to Ofcom tomorrow. Is there anyone else we should approach to talk about this issue?
UPDATE: Ofcom have just announced that they could take formal action over the speed issue. Ben Wallis from their Consumer Panel has written a blog post for us on the reason's for Ofcom's actions and is inviting feedback in the comments.
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