Crunch time for broadband speed ads
Garnet Roach
Ofcom has warned broadband providers that they only have a few weeks to sign up to a voluntary code on the way broadband speeds are sold or face mandatory regulation.
Ed Richards, Ofcom chief executive, told a parliamentary select committee: “This is a near-term issue that needs to be dealt with now and we would like to be able to get the industry to sign up with the next few weeks.
“But I am not sure we can,” he added. “And if the providers do not agree we will have to move to a mandatory code, which will take much longer when we want to move quickly.”
Ofcom wrote to the UK’s “big six” providers - BT (www.BT.com), Carphone Warehouse, which owns AOL (www.AOL.co.uk) and TalkTalk (www.TalkTalk.co.uk), Orange (www.Orange.co.uk), Sky Broadband (www.Sky.com), Tiscali (www.Tiscali.co.uk) and Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com) - last year, seeking advice on how best to advertise broadband speeds since the majority of customers get less than half of their advertised “up to” speed.
So far no voluntary agreement has been reached and Richards told the Commons culture, media & sport and business & enterprise committees that the ISP industry has been dragging its feet. “I would say the discussions are difficult. I am not yet sure we will be able to deliver a voluntary code,” he said.
BT is the only provider to openly back a move to a clearer method of speed advertising, recently saying that the launch of BT Wholesale’s 21 Century Network next week would be the perfect time to begin advertising average speeds rather than unobtainable top speeds.
“We believe the most important thing is transparency when a customer orders a broadband service,” said a spokesman. “BT Retail always tells the customer what speed of service they will receive before they place the order and we believe that other companies should do the same.”
Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, said: “A code of practice on the selling of broadband speeds is long overdue.
“The majority of customers on an ‘up to 8Mb’ package - the UK’s most popular tariff - actually achieve something in the region of 3.4Mb - a big drop from the speed many people think they have signed up to. The broadband industry has received a lot of bad press but this has helped increase awareness about the factors that affect broadband speed, such as distance from the exchange and traffic management, however consumer dissatisfaction continues to grow.”
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