As we covered last week, Ofcom has launched an investigation into UK broadband speeds, comparing those advertised and those received by customers. The move is in conjunction with technology experts SamKnows and will quite literally allow the regulator to monitor broadband speeds up and down the country via a growing army of volunteers.
This is not the first time that Ofcom has questioned the broadband speeds advertised in the press and those received by customers although there are more warnings today about speed variations depending upon the distance from the nearest exchange. However, there is no doubt that some customers are still ignoring these warnings and signing up to “superfast broadband” only to find that speeds are perhaps not what they had expected.
When you consider that the likes of Virgin Broadband have just rolled out their 100 Mb per second broadband service and are looking towards a 200 Mb per second service in the future there is a need to ensure customers are getting what they pay for. The likes of BT are also prominent in this superfast broadband arena and the monitoring program with SamKnows will take in the top 10 Internet service providers in the UK which include Virgin, BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Orange and AOL to name but a few.