For the first time ever, a high profile consumer campaign has been launched to try and stop broadband providers from using the words ‘up to’ when advertising their broadband. Until now, most providers used ‘up to’ to stick their most highest possible speeds up in front of consumers either on the website or as a sales material in stores, tv or print. The gadget show is a well known channel FIVE television show which talks about different areas of technology and is hoping to make broadband advertising fairer.
The show referenced a recent Ofcom report that shows that the gap between advertised and real world speed has been increasing, especially for those currently using dongles for laptops and mobile broadband deals, but also even for regular DSL and Cable, with the average ‘up to 24 Mbps’ package only actually delivering an average of 6.5 Mbps!
Of course, there are some good reasons for the use of up to; it allows users to easily compare technology and much like many other forms of numbers used in sales, its there to give you a general indication and shouldn’t be used as an exact estimate. Because of this, it’s not likely we’ll see the term up to being banned from UK net advertise any time soon. We may however see some changes.
One of the most popular has already been announced by Ofcom that will let users leave their contract if their broadband speed doesn’t come close to the speed they were estimated – not advertised – when they signed up. However, currently this rule is voluntary and so for all intents and purposes useless for consumers in its current form. Let’s hope that this and other consumer campaigns can do something to change that. It is always advisable to compare broadband phone and tv packages prior to signing any contracts, and check what your estimated line speed is, not just your maximum speed for your chosen package. There is no point paying more money per month for the top speed package is your phone line is not capable of giving you a faster speed than the medium package, for example.