e-biz
putting the 'e' into business
Sunday 27 April 2008, 9:12 PM
Brits Are Broadband Speed Junkies
Back in February I blogged that UK-based broadband users are being fobbed off with vastly under-performing services - the average speed in the UK at that time was a pitiful 2.95Mbps. A few months on and things haven’t got any better, and there are new figures to prove it.
To rub salt into the wound, it seems we are a nation of ‘speed freaks’. According to broadband comparison site Top 10 Broadband, download speed seems to be the primary factor in deciding broadband customer satisfaction. Based on over 90,000 broadband speed tests captured in March 2008, the top three fastest broadband providers were also the three highest rated.
Using the comapny’s broadband speed test, the team measured the download speed of each user’s broadband connection and asked users to rate their broadband provider out of five at the same time. Customers on faster broadband connections awarded their providers higher customer satisfaction ratings than did those with slower speeds, suggesting a nation of speed-hungry broadband users.
O2 topped the rankings in terms of both speed and customer ratings, with an average speed of 6.41Mbps and customer rating of 3.82 out of 5. Second and third for both speed and rating were Be and Virgin Media respectively. Tesco paled in comparison with a pathetic average download speed of 1.42Mbps and average customer rating of just 2.86 out of 5, making it the slowest ISP in the study.
According to the data collected, the average speed of UK broadband connections is just 3.18Mbps, despite this fact most ISPs advertise speeds of up to 8Mbps and beyond. The report only enforces what I’ve been saying for years - broadband providers need to speed up or face the wrath of disappointed customers. BT’s planned infrastructure upgrade, which will provide super-fast ADSL2+ download speeds across the UK, starts at the end of the month and cannot come soon enough.
Like I said before, broadband providers need to stop misleading us over broadband speeds. Period! It’s quite simple really - instead of stating the maximum broadband speeds that are often only achieved by a very small percentage of subscribers in central London, advertise the average download and upload speeds achieved by your broadband subscribers. Yes, I know the lower numbers won’t excite marketers, but won’t actually delivering on your claims be a more powerful advertising message which you can then build on?
PreviousComments on this post
How can we be speed junkies when there no genuine broadband services in the first place? Anything going over old copper wires as local loops cannot be counted as a broadband technology.
Where is the fibre to the home or office in the UK? Most places don't even have SDSL services. BT is totally unable to provide any kind of decent services for a business!
J.Neuhoff
Regardless of the relatively bad broadband services we apparently have in the UK (at least compared to most of the developed world), speed is obviously a priority for a vast majority of users. Agreed, we need to bring out the Dark Fibre in a hurry.
