*snap* UK Internet speeds Don't Feel So Good - New Rules drop internet speeds by almost 50%

[rcmaehl]

Sources:
Mirror

Computer Weekly

 

TL;DR:

New UK advertising rules force marketing to display realistic average speeds compared to maximum "burst" speeds. Almost all companies have lowered their advertised speeds.

 

Quotes/Excerpts:

Quote

Providers have been forced to cut their advertised speeds following a recent rule change...deals dropping by an average 41%. Previously... allowed to advertise "up to" speeds... resulting in widespread complaints. Only Virgin Media's advertised speeds had gone up since the change. Households were paying for broadband services that were on average 51% slower than advertised.

Quote

The new rules, designed to bring more clarity to a market...mandating that an advertised speed must be available to 50% of customers at peak times. Customers will now have a much clearer idea of the speeds. UK’s 12 largest ISPs, advertised speeds had decreased by an average of 15%.

 

My Thoughts:
This is a good step forward. The US still uses UP TO speeds which can be wildly off, especially in more populated areas or if someone on your shared line is torrenting hard.

[Br3tt96]

2 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

Sources:
Mirror

Computer Weekly

 

TL;DR:

New UK advertising rules force marketing to display realistic average speeds compared to maximum "burst" speeds. Almost all companies have lowered their advertised speeds.

 

Quotes/Excerpts:

 

My Thoughts:
This is a good step forward. The US still uses UP TO speeds which can be wildly off, especially in more populated areas or if someone on your shared line is torrenting hard.

The internet in America is atrocious in my area

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

3 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

Sources:
Mirror

Computer Weekly

 

TL;DR:

New UK advertising rules force marketing to display realistic average speeds compared to maximum "burst" speeds. Almost all companies have lowered their advertised speeds.

 

Quotes/Excerpts:

 

My Thoughts:
This is a good step forward. The US still uses UP TO speeds which can be wildly off, especially in more populated areas or if someone on your shared line is torrenting hard.

Your title... I thought you meant actual speeds, not advertised speeds. 

[PlayStation 2]

Just now, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Your title... I thought you meant actual speeds, not advertised speeds. 

Being misleading sells threads.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Just now, Dan Castellaneta said:

Being misleading sells threads.

Much like how misleading advertisements sell internet plans. 

[KingCobra484]

Very odd of VM to advertise averages that are higher than their advertised speeds. From experience, their speeds fluctuate wildly throughout the day/time of year. Also, there’s no telling how they got these averages.

[AngryBeaver]

When it comes to misleading speeds in the states I think the biggest offenders are mostly the DSL companies. I have seen first hand that they are normally far off what they advertise. Strangely enough the cable companies here are largely pretty spot on with what they are offering give or take 5-10%.

[PlayStation 2]

2 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Much like how misleading advertisements sell internet plans. 

Or how misleading titles sell YouTube videos.

Or misleading names lead to Google searches.

It's how the world works.

[jiyeon]

Nice clickbait, holy hell... Got legitimately concerned since I had only upgraded to Fiber Optic a couple of weeks ago.

[aezakmi]

Mine is also UP TO 1Mb

I only get 512K, I'm paying for twice that speed.

 

3 minutes ago, AngryBeaver said:

I think the biggest offenders are mostly the DSL companies.

x2 and not just in the US

[DildorTheDecent]

Checked with BT as to what the fastest speed is I can get in my area. It's spot on with the average speed.

[GoodBytes]

Canada also uses "up to" speed.

However, smaller ISPs, at least in my region and Videotron (a large cable ISP and cable TV service provider) tend to ensure that you reach or surpass a bit the marked speed, (although, for Videotron, their service is more on the costly side).

[mr moose]

Australia brought in these laws a little while ago, and now all RSP's are advertising average consumer speed during peak.  It has been refreshing not hear thee outlandish BS they were promoting earlier. 

 

EDIT< although it is still funny to hear some of them claim to be on the fastest network when all RSP's in Australia use the same network.

 

 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

1 minute ago, GoodBytes said:

Canada also uses "up to" speed.

However, smaller ISPs, at least in my region and Videotron (a large cable ISP and cable TV service provider) tend to ensure that you reach or surpass a bit the marked speed, although their service is more on the costly side.

I'm getting 160, sometimes even 170 down on my 150 connection with Shaw. Same story with upload, it's always on par or above the advertised speed, sometimes up to a mb higher.

[GoodBytes]

6 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

I'm getting 160, sometimes even 170 down on my 150 connection with Shaw. Same story with upload, it's always on par or above the advertised speed, sometimes up to a mb higher.

Real cool! We don't have Shaws Internet where I am, only TV via dish, if I am not mistaken.

[captain_to_fire]

31 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Much like how misleading advertisements sell internet plans. 

ISP advertises "up to 100 mbps, unlimited data", but then sees the fine print about "fair use policy"... 

[Notn4]

Huh, didn't even know that this was an issue in some countries. At home I pay for 100mb down and 20mb up, I get 98-99mb down and 19-20mb up, this is also really consistent, never have I seen a dip below 80mb down. I also got the same speeds for my phone's LTE and those occasionally dip quite a bit but that's because of reception strength.

 

 

In my opinion advertising up to speeds is just a shitty way to sell connections to people, so these new rules are certainly a step in the right direction.

 

 

[Dabombinable]

If only this would happen with at least non NBN plans in Australia. Eg. ADSL2 advertised as up to its theoretical speeds, sold directly to me as being 9Mbps at most in my household, 9Mbps only being seen for exactly 3 months before it got throttled to 6-7Mbps (if it wasn't throttling, the speed wouldn't be consistent).

14 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Australia brought in these laws a little while ago, and now all RSP's are advertising average consumer speed during peak.  It has been refreshing not hear thee outlandish BS they were promoting earlier. 

 

EDIT< although it is still funny to hear some of them claim to be on the fastest network when all RSP's in Australia use the same network.

 

 

They actually are now? I thought they were only doing that with the NBN.

[S w a t s o n]

23 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Canada also uses "up to" speed.

However, smaller ISPs, at least in my region and Videotron (a large cable ISP and cable TV service provider) tend to ensure that you reach or surpass a bit the marked speed, although their service is more on the costly side.

Even the big guys have their shit (mostly) sorted.

 

 

I pay Rogers for gigabit down and 30 up.

 

Laugh at the upload speed all you want, no one in my house uploads anything. I could twitch stream no problem 1080p60 fps at high bitrate. Used to be 50 up but they are working on DOCSIS 3.1 full rollout to enable up to symmetrical gigabit.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

2 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Real cool! We don't have Shaws Internet where I am, only TV via dish, if I am not mistaken.

 

Just searched that up and Shaw Direct appears to be a thing here as well? Interesting, never see them really advertise it over here. The last time I used dish TV was with Bell over 10 years ago... and well that was a mess. More than 50% of the day, there was no signal. 

[Mr.Meerkat]

40 minutes ago, KingCobra484 said:

Very odd of VM to advertise averages that are higher than their advertised speeds. From experience, their speeds fluctuate wildly throughout the day/time of year. Also, there’s no telling how they got these averages.

They got their stats from samknows. Would have liked to see "ofcom" but samknows does seem to be somewhat reputable? I mean Ofcom have used numbers provided from samknows before so surely there's some credibility in samknows.

Also, from what I've seen and heard, if you have one of their "unthrottled" connections, you get your normal speeds (maybe minus 10mbps, which makes no significant difference when you have 350 or 200mbps) during peak times. 

 

Edit: Here's the download speed averages from Ofcom's 2017 report.

Yep, its probably safe to assume Virgin are not BS-ing (at least in terms of peak speeds when its nice n quiet). 

 

P.S. Ofcom is the UK's regulatory body in regarding communications. They are "endorsed" by the government so generally, anything that comes from them will be completely objective and factual. 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

3 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

ISP advertises "up to 100 mbps, unlimited data", but then sees the fine print about "fair use policy"... 

What do they consider as "fair use"? I know most ISPs don't like you running websites or web servers off your home internet and that's honestly fair. 

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

If only this would happen with at least non NBN plans in Australia. Eg. ADSL2 advertised as up to its theoretical speeds, sold directly to me as being 9Mbps at most in my household, 9Mbps only being seen for exactly 3 months before it got throttled to 6-7Mbps (if it wasn't throttling, the speed wouldn't be consistent).

They actually are now? I thought they were only doing that with the NBN.

RSP's are on the NBN,  the others are still ISP's, sorry should have clarified that.

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

RSP's are on the NBN,  the others are still ISP's, sorry should have clarified that.

So only ISP on the NBN aren't allowed to fuck customers. Great.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

So only ISP on the NBN aren't allowed to fuck customers. Great.

There are no ISP's on the NBN, if you are still on dial up or DSL then are using an ISP.  I am pretty sure consumer law still applies them, but for service providers on the NBN they are called RSP's and they are not allowed to promote upto speeds as far as I am aware.