Broadband Guide

Slow broadband?

Updated: Wednesday 18 January, 2012

By Editorial - news@consumerchoices.co.uk

Because advertised top speeds rarely live up to reality, many consumers end up disappointed by their broadband speeds. But you don’t have to put up with a slow broadband connection - there are things you can do to speed things up.

Broadband speeds are slower than advertised

All broadband providers should give you an estimate of the actual speed you will receive - rather than just the top advertised speed which is rarely achievable.

However, research by Ofcom at the start of 2010 found that a massive 74% of customers were not told that their actual speed was likely to be slower than the advertised maximum.

With a view to closing the gap between sky-high advertised connection speeds and the actual speeds received by customers, the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) issued new guidance to ISP's. The guidance, issued in October 2011, states that the maximum broadband speeds advertised should be achievable by at least 10% of the advertiser's customers.

The guidelines were welcomed by Ofcom, which has its own voluntary code of practice in place to promote broadband speed transparency. However, Ofcom says that while the code, which was introduced in 2008, has improved the situation, more still needs to be done.

The regulator has threatened ISPs with tighter regulations if they don’t start doing a better job of telling customers about broadband speeds.

What to do?

Ask your ISP for an estimate of the kind of speeds that you should be receiving and use our free broadband speed tester to see what you're really getting. Make sure that you don’t have any other bandwidth-hungry programs running in the background, such as Skype or the BBC iPlayer, as this could affect your result, and try to test your speed at different times of the day as peak time traffic can really affect broadband speeds.

If you find that your broadband isn’t up to scratch, the first thing you should do is get in touch with your provider to see if there’s anything they can do to improve things, such as checking your line for faults or upgrading your router.

There might also be speed upgrades available from your existing supplier - for example, BT Broadband (www.BT.com) say that any customer ordering a Broadband and Calls package with 40GB monthly usage or more will be upgraded to BT Infinity for free when the fibre service comes to their area. Other providers have updated their entire network in recent years so if you are on an older package, you may qualify for a free upgrade to a faster connection. Contact your supplier to find out.

You could also try taking some steps yourself, such as installing an iPlate, making sure that your wireless broadband is secure and no one is piggybacking your account or simply clearing your cache and web history to speed up your computer.

Keep a record of all your correspondence with your ISP as well as details of when you called them, who you spoke to, how long for - as well as the cost of calls if you have to pay.

Legal stance

If things don’t improve, use the records you kept to put your complaint in writing. Photocopy or save a copy of the letter before you post it and put it in a folder with your other notes. Double check the address you are sending the letter to so it arrives at the correct department. Be sure to add a paragraph which says you expect a written response from the company in no less than 30 days.

If the official complaints procedure does not work or you are still unsatisfied with the service from your ISP, you can try getting Ombudsman Services: Communications, the telecoms adjudicator, involved. You also have the option to take the company to the small claims court under the Supply of Goods and Services Act. Damages you may be entitled to receive include: switching fees refunded, compensation for the time your connection was down and compensation for poor customer service.

But be sure to remember that suppliers have a loophole for broadband speeds - which are advertised as “up to” when describing the service.

This means they never actually guarantee a speed - which would be very difficult to do anyway, since broadband speeds can fluctuate at different times of the day, or even peak during certain events when lots of people might be logging on to watch repeats of TV programmes online, for example.

Switch broadband provider

Once you're out of your contract, you'll have the option to switch broadband provider - which could save you over £100 as well as getting you a faster, more reliable broadband connection and better customer service.

Virgin Media (www.Virginmedia.com) offers the UK’s fastest, widely available broadband packages with it's up to 100Mb and up to 50Mb broadband. However, because it uses cable throughout its network, rather than copper wire telephone lines, its 10Mb and 30Mb broadband options also perform consistently well.

Even if you live outside of Virgin Media’s cable network, which covers around 50% of the UK, switching broadband providers could still get you a better service. Providers like O2 Broadband (www.O2.co.uk), Plusnet Broadband (www.Plus.net) and BE Broadband (www.Bethere.co.uk) have all won awards for their services, which come with speeds of up to 20Mb or 24Mb broadband.

Future speed improvements

While there are steps that you can take to boost your broadband speeds, if you do live far from your local telephone exchange and don’t have the option of switching to cable, you might not see huge improvements in your download speed.

Many local loop unbundled (LLU) broadband providers also apply regional pricing to their packages, which means that if you live in a remote rural area where the exchange hasn’t been unbundled, you won’t be able to take advantage of the cheap broadband deals offered by many of these ISPs.

The government has promised to deliver a universal service agreement, bringing speeds of at least 2Mb to all homes by 2015, eliminating “not-spots”.

And while it may be a few years off, there is more hope for broadband customers suffering from slow speeds. Each major political party has pledged to deliver superfast broadband to the vast majority of the country by 2017, meaning that even those in rural areas should be able to enjoy fibre optic broadband by the end of the decade.

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