Broadband speeds under scrutiny

Broadband speeds under scrutiny

news.bbc.co.uk

Broadband speeds in the UK are much slower than advertised by internet service providers, a study by Computeractive magazine has found.

Some 3,000 readers took part in speed tests and 62% found they routinely got less than half of the top speed advertised by their provider.

It is the latest in a series of questions over the way net firms advertise broadband services.

Regulator Ofcom said it was aware of the issue and was "investigating".

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This has been a complain of so many of us with our broadband services. The ISPs advertise one rate, then they provide is with another. We know it, but they try to spin it. Now a report has confirmed what we have long suspected.

It's great that there is an independent regulator that monitors this sort of things in the UK. I wonder if there are such groups elsewhere in the world where broadband is available?

In Malaysia, there's no such thing. But hopefully soon enough there will be, since there have been loads of complains. Local blogger Jeff Ooi has been leading the campaign to fight for our internet rights in this country, so hopefully soon the virtual monopoly TMNet will be put under scrutiny and submitted to stronger competition laws.

What about the rest of the world? How effective is the local watchdog (if there is one)? What stories would you like to share?

For those of you in the UK, if you have a complain about your internet service, you can lodge one at the Ofcom website, at www.ofcom.org.uk....

If you are not sure whether you are getting the speeds you signed up for, you can check for yourself at www.dslreports.com....

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

A little off topic but related.

The United States has one of the slowest internet broadband speeds in the world, som which are not even considered broadband in other countries. Regualr Download speed is like 6 mps (megabytes per second) while Japan has around 40 mps. I think Rhoad Island has the fastest internet in the US.

**All of the factual information above is sourced from USA Today, about 3 months ago, the numbers may be off a tad.