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Broadband speeds – The user experience of advertised vs. actual

Broadband analyst firm Point Topic have released the results of a survey based on user’s views of speeds offered by the big 6 UK broadband providers.

The YouGov commissioned survey asked respondents subscribing to one of the Big 6 broadband providers - Sky, Virgin Media, Tiscali, Carphone Warehouse, BT and Orange whether they were getting the advertised “up to” speeds on their broadband package.  It found that as advertised speeds get higher, less and less users actually experience those speeds.

According to Pamela Varley, research analyst at Point Topic, ”of the users who reported subscribing to an ‘up to 16 Mbps’ package, only 4% said that their connection actually provided it.”

However, in general due to many technological factors, it is difficult to derive a totally reliable figure on a users’ broadband speeds.

Varley continues, “there are many variables that affect broadband speeds, distance from the exchange, contention, line quality and so on.  It is a challenge to be able to factor all these into a calculation that gives you a reliable idea of the actual speed an individual connection will achieve.”

Point Topic’s figures below highlight the percentage of users achieving the ‘up to’ speed or higher.

The speed results were based on 4000 online respondents. Overall, Sky were found to have the best match between advertised and actual speeds, followed by Virgin Media.