BT suggests new advertising on speeds

chris

There has been a lot of confusion regarding internet connection speeds recently. This has caused some problems for the various ISP’s offering the “Up to 8 Mbps” service simply because there is virtually nobody getting these speeds at all, which consumers feel is wrong.

The problem is that 8 Mbps is only available at exchanges where ISP’s have put in their own equipment thanks to the exchanges being opened up by BT. But the speed is relevant to the location of the modem to the exchange. If the modem is near the exchange it will get a faster speed and the further away, which sometimes can be up to four miles it is going to be slower.

In actual fact 8 Mbps is impossible to achieve even if the modem was right next door to the exchange, this is because of line speed and throughput. Line speed we know about, but throughput is the speed at which data arrives and can be affected by congestion.

BT is suggesting that the ISP’s should rephrase their advertising to read something like “Between 512 Kbps and 7.5 Mbps” they say that this would cover all situations, but would it please the customers?

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