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ISPs' Listed Speeds Drop Up To 41 Percent After UK Requires Accurate Advertising (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the bold-text-with-asterisks dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Most broadband providers in the UK "have been forced to cut the headline speeds they advertise when selling deals" because of new UK rules requiring accurate speed claims, according to a consumer advocacy group. "Eleven major suppliers have had to cut the advertised speed of some of their deals, with the cheapest deals dropping by 41 percent," the group wrote last week. The analysis was conducted by Which?, a brand name used by the Consumers' Association, a UK-based charity that does product research and advocacy on behalf of consumers. "BT, EE, John Lewis Broadband, Plusnet, Sky, Zen Internet, Post Office, SSE, TalkTalk, and Utility Warehouse previously advertised their standard (ADSL) broadband deals as 'up to 17Mbps,'" the group noted in its announcement on Saturday. "The new advertised speed is now more than a third lower at 10Mbps or 11Mbps." "TalkTalk has completely dropped advertising speed claims from most of its deals," the consumer group also said. "Vodafone has also changed the name of some of its deals: Fibre 38 and Fibre 76 are now Superfast 1 and Superfast 2." Previously, ISPs were able to advertise broadband speeds of "up to" a certain amount, even if only one in 10 customers could ever get those speeds, Which? wrote. "But the new advertising rules mean that at least half of customers must now be able to get an advertised average speed, even during peak times (8-10pm)," the group said.

27 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Very descriptive, I guess? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

    Vodafone has also changed the name of some of its deals: Fibre 38 and Fibre 76 are now Superfast 1 and Superfast 2.

    Now define "fast".

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    1. Re:Very descriptive, I guess? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Vodafone has also changed the name of some of its deals: Fibre 38 and Fibre 76 are now Superfast 1 and Superfast 2.

      Now define "fast".

      "fast" is what a company says it is - at least here in the States.

      Truth in advertising? LOL!

      "Well Mr. Regulator, it's faster than Dail-Up!"

      "Ah OK! Here's a get-out-of-fines card. Have a nice day! I look forwards to working for you! I Mean Working WITH you! *wink* *wink*"

      Consumer: "My AT&T connection is overpriced shit!!"

      LAW written by industry lobbyists: "That's slander! STFU!"

      Consumer who doesn't have the resources to fight: "I apologize for my ignorant attack. I was wrong. AT&T are saints and should by knighted by President Trump AND the Queen of England!!"

    2. Re:Very descriptive, I guess? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Looks like Super Kendalll has lost his password.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:Very descriptive, I guess? by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      Suddenlink likes to say they are faster than DSL but they aren't even faster than that here and they know it, they send out lots of fliers but never mention the actual speeds they sell.

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    4. Re:Very descriptive, I guess? by arth1 · · Score: 1

      "Well Mr. Regulator, it's faster than Dail-Up!"[sic]

      Not necessarily, no. You could possibly bond 672 dial-up modems with compression in parallel on each T3...
      (Although the fattest bonding I read about "only" scaled to 30 ISDN channels, and was only used because it was significantly cheaper to jump through hoops to scale than paying for the entire E1 all the time.)

  2. Better for consumers by rjstanford · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is another case where the UK's watchdog agency has made things better for the average consumer. Always be cautious of people insisting that "freedom" is always better, when "freedom" often includes the freedom to lie to your customers - albeit with the bonus of being able to make some truly awesome ads that don't fly over there.

    --
    You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
    1. Re:Better for consumers by Desler · · Score: 2

      You seem to have purposefully glossed over this part of their post:

      when "freedom" often includes the freedom to lie to your customers

      Fraudulent advertising should never be tolerated as "freedom." No one was talking about insulting others or any such nonsense.

    2. Re: Better for consumers by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      In the US we just have a whole generation that cant afford to buy a house

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    3. Re:Better for consumers by jareth-0205 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Living in the freedom country is still worth it compared to the UK.,,

      VAT 20% - because that is fair on lower incomes :-)
      Price of gasoline? probably a weeks wages to fill a car up
      Electricity? 10c/kWh around here.
      Prices of houses, out of the question for the working class.

      Yeah, please enjoy your honest broadband speedz :-)

      Medical bills & chance of being bankrupted by sickness or denied treatment - zero.
      University education - not cheap but a helluvalot more affordable than your 'freedom' prices.
      Actual consumer protection laws so you can expect your purchases to function.

      But I do agree on the VAT, it's a horribly regressive tax.

    4. Re:Better for consumers by AlanBDee · · Score: 1

      University education - not cheap but a helluvalot more affordable than your 'freedom' prices.

      Some universities aren't that expensive. If you go to a public in-state university then it's not nearly as expensive as many of the private universities that prey on people, give them a crap education, and stick them with a lifetime of student loan debt. For example the University I went to is currently about $20-25k for a bachelors degree. That same degree from some of the private universities are over $100k. But the feds started to crack down on them and people are getting wise to the scam which is making it harder for these private universities to do it.

    5. Re: Better for consumers by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      This is another case where the UK's watchdog agency has made things better for the average consumer.

      What's better about it? You still get the same shitty connection, but with a new name, like "Superfast 2" which tells you nothing at all about it. Or, even if the name actually still describes expected speeds, it still only has to cover 50% of costumers during peak times so it's a coin toss over whether your service matches the advertised speed.

      I'm failing to see the "better" in any of that. I suspect that whatever benefit you think you're seeing is either nonexistent in practice, or negligible are best.

    6. Re:Better for consumers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ...one of the few legitimate areas of government intervention in free markets

      The government we have now is a result of most people agreeing that there are only a few legitimate areas of government intervention, but few people agreeing on what those specific areas are. There are plenty of people that would disagree that the government is responsible for ensuring there is no fraud, for example. They would probably say you should sue if you don't get "x".

    7. Re: Better for consumers by mikael · · Score: 1

      Regardless of the reseller you get the "broadband" service from, they still have to lease telephone lines from BT OpenReach and a commercial fibre-optic internet link from a national service provider. The first problem is that the telephone lines can't be changed and the signal/noise ratio limits the maximum bandwidth. Then there is the number of customers sharing that trunk line.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    8. Re:Better for consumers by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      I just want the Freedom to demand that assholes either shut the fuck up, or settle our dispute with a sword duel.

    9. Re:Better for consumers by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Fraud is freedom due to the purposeful corruption of the legal system. Freedom to lie is never better.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    10. Re:Better for consumers by sdjimmy · · Score: 1

      University Fees: zero if you're Scottish and go to a Scottish University.

    11. Re:Better for consumers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Medical bills & chance of being bankrupted by sickness or denied treatment - zero.

      Hah, you wish. People are literally dying from the delays in treatment as the NHS is completely oversaturated with patients, more and more people are being driven to private health insurance every year, and nurses/doctors in the UK keep getting longer hours and less pay, which is why you hear about an NHS strike every few months. Over 70% of healthcare workers in the NHS end up doing unpaid overtime each week because they actually care about the patients and helping their coworkers.

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-...
      https://www.theguardian.com/so...
      https://www.theguardian.com/he...

      The NHS is collapsing and open boarders, along with hundreds of thousands of refugees (of which most don't work even after being there for 4 years), is only speeding it up.

      University education - not cheap but a helluvalot more affordable than your 'freedom' prices.

      Not exactly useful when degrees are nothing more than expensive toilet paper now. Unless you're a genius in some field, go to trade school instead.

      Actual consumer protection laws so you can expect your purchases to function.

      The US has the most amazing and generous return policies I've ever seen, it's far easier to justify a return in the US than in the UK.

    12. Re:Better for consumers by mjwx · · Score: 1

      This is another case where the UK's watchdog agency has made things better for the average consumer. Always be cautious of people insisting that "freedom" is always better, when "freedom" often includes the freedom to lie to your customers - albeit with the bonus of being able to make some truly awesome ads that don't fly over there.

      Maybe it's because I've always lived in countries that have punished deceptive advertising... but I've never considered "being lied to" a freedom at all, let alone a basic one.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  3. Loot boxes were banned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Up to" speeds are kind of like loot boxes. You fire up the browser and see what the computer gods are giving you today.

    1. Re:Loot boxes were banned by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      If those are your Gods, you should really watch an old show called Stargate. It's about ISPs.

  4. how do they list vdsl2 planes where the line by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    how do they list vdsl2 planes where the line controls much speed you can get?

    1. Re:how do they list vdsl2 planes where the line by jareth-0205 · · Score: 1

      They can predict reasonably accurately how fast the line will go to your house because there's a whole bunch of historical data to pull from https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/...

      Don't ask me how this works for averages though... an ISP that has more customers on lower speed lines presumably would have their average pulled down even though they themselves might not be the bottleneck. Meh... nothing's perfect and it's a better rule than it was...

  5. Re:Concentration change? by sims+2 · · Score: 1

    If you are selling service as 10Mbps it doesn't seem unreasonable that half of those attempting to use it at peak time actually be able to do so.

    --
    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
  6. It's still enough by AlanBDee · · Score: 1

    I recently updated my internet from 20Mbs to 40Mbs with Centurylink. Before I let the installer leave I verified the download speeds and found some interesting results:

    1) many of the "speed tests" online were wrong. My PfSense firewall has a real time graph that measures traffic. I got anything from 10Mbps to 67Mbps on the speed tests while my firewall would consistently show the spike up to about 38Mbps where it would flat line until the test was done.
    2) It takes a little over 21Mbps to stream a 4k nature video from YouTube. Star Wars Episode VIII from Netflix (1080p) was 6Mbps and my kids cartoon was 4Mbps (1080p).

    So even though the ISPs had to drop the advertised speed it's still plenty of speed so long as you are actually getting that speed.

    1. Re:It's still enough by Cederic · · Score: 1

      My ISP didn't have to drop their advertised speeds.

      I find Steam is a reliable speed test. Downloading a 17GB game at a rate faster in bytes/s than most of the UK gets in bits/s isn't actually worth the money I'm paying for it, but it does sustain it, even at peak usage times.

  7. Re: Concentration change? by Wycliffe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You are confusing peak speed with average speed. Peak speed is a useless metric unless you are always using the internet at 2am. Average speed during normal usage is what a customer cares about. You can still oversell the bandwidth but you have to be honest about what kind of bandwidth a customer can expect. Who cares if you are on a T1 or a T3? Who cares if you have a 100mbps or 1000gpbs connection if your 1000gbps connection is so saturated that it is really only 10mbps? Giving the average real world speed is much easier to compare companies (for those lucky enough to have competition and choice)

  8. Re:Concentration change? by ledow · · Score: 2

    Exactly.

    Whatever the historical "norm", on highly asymmetric services, if a customer without techy knowledge buys something called "100Mbps" they expect... well... 100Mbps. And it to be twice as fast as something 50Mbps.

    Alright, they may not know what 100Mbps represents, how it compares to MB/s, etc. but that's the technicality. However, selling a 100Mbps where the average person gets home from work (peak time) and receives a maximum of 10Mbps (previous) or EVEN 50Mbps is misleading. Don't claim it if you can't sell it.

    If it was a case that you had to compete against other ISPs lying in this manner, while you had to "tell the truth", then yes it's unfair. But if *ALL* ISPs have to stick by the same numbering, then it's not misleading even if everyone goes "But didn't I used to get 100? Why do I only get 10 now?" because they can't go to a competitor that is mis-selling 10 as 100 any more.

    The numbers don't matter. The truth of them does.