BBC- Britain 'failing' net speed tests

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6924866.stm

"There is a huge gap between advertised broadband speeds and the actual
speeds users can achieve, research has shown.

A survey by consumer group Which? found that broadband packages
promising speeds of up to 8Mbps (megabits per second) actually achieved
far less.

Tests of 300 customers' net connections revealed that the average
download speed they were getting was 2.7Mbps. "

[etc.]

Big surprise there!

--
(*) ... of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
http://www.davidhorne.net - real address on website
"Abominable, loyal, blind, apparently subservient."
Pres. Carter on Ex-Pres. Blair- May, 2007

David Horne wrote:

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6924866.stm
>
> "There is a huge gap between advertised broadband speeds and the actual
> speeds users can achieve, research has shown.
>
> A survey by consumer group Which? found that broadband packages
> promising speeds of up to 8Mbps (megabits per second) actually achieved
> far less.
>
> Tests of 300 customers' net connections revealed that the average
> download speed they were getting was 2.7Mbps. "
>
> [etc.]
>
> Big surprise there!

Given that 7150 kbps is the fastest that so-called '8meg' will go, that's an
average of 38% of the maximum possible. Given that you'll only get that 7150
kbps if your line to the exchange is somewhere in the region of 1.5km and plenty
of ppl live much further away with the resulting reduction in speed it doesn't
actually strike me as that bad.

In the USA Verizon's idea of entry level broadband is 768kbps.
http://www.verizon.net/App_Themes/ho..._best_deal.gif

Graham

"David Horne" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:1i27v8u.yrysx4swfv3yN%(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6924866.stm
>
> "There is a huge gap between advertised broadband speeds and the actual
> speeds users can achieve, research has shown.
>
> A survey by consumer group Which? found that broadband packages
> promising speeds of up to 8Mbps (megabits per second) actually achieved
> far less.
>
> Tests of 300 customers' net connections revealed that the average
> download speed they were getting was 2.7Mbps. "
>
> [etc.]
>
> Big surprise there!

The story confuses two very different issues:

1. Depending on line length etc, the actual speed that the modem
synchronises at may be less than 8 Mbps - annoying if you're lower, but not
exactly misrepresentation.

2. Even though your modem syncs at (for example) 8 Mbps, you consistently
get much less than the expected speed. That's bad.

They quote one example where someone gets 0.09 Mbps (ie 90 kB/sec). Even if
their line is only syncing at 288 or 576 kbps, 90 is very poor, even taking
into account contention.

Eeyore <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> David Horne wrote:
>
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6924866.stm
> >
> > "There is a huge gap between advertised broadband speeds and the actual
> > speeds users can achieve, research has shown.
> >
> > A survey by consumer group Which? found that broadband packages
> > promising speeds of up to 8Mbps (megabits per second) actually achieved
> > far less.
> >
> > Tests of 300 customers' net connections revealed that the average
> > download speed they were getting was 2.7Mbps. "
> >
> > [etc.]
> >
> > Big surprise there!
>
> Given that 7150 kbps is the fastest that so-called '8meg' will go, that's
> an average of 38% of the maximum possible. Given that you'll only get that
> 7150 kbps if your line to the exchange is somewhere in the region of 1.5km
> and plenty of ppl live much further away with the resulting reduction in
> speed it doesn't actually strike me as that bad.

I would want to see a comparison with other countries, in particular
other countries with high density populations. How come I've got friends
in Amsterdam and Paris who get consistently fast speeds, but I'm told I
should just put up with slowish speeds during the day? I can see how the
advertising irritates peopple, "up to" or not.

--
(*) ... of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
http://www.davidhorne.net - real address on website
"Abominable, loyal, blind, apparently subservient."
Pres. Carter on Ex-Pres. Blair- May, 2007

On Thu, 2 Aug 2007 12:08:48 +0100, (E-Mail Removed) (David Horne)
wrote:

>I would want to see a comparison with other countries, in particular
>other countries with high density populations. How come I've got friends
>in Amsterdam and Paris who get consistently fast speeds, but I'm told I
>should just put up with slowish speeds during the day? I can see how the
>advertising irritates peopple, "up to" or not.

http://www.speedtest.net/ will do all the comparisons you will need.

Steve

--
Steve Wolstenholme Neural Planner Software Ltd

EasyNN-plus. The easy way to build neural networks.

http://www.easynn.com

On Thu, 2 Aug 2007 11:45:36 +0100 David Horne
from the village of (E-Mail Removed)
felt we might be interested in the following...


>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6924866.stm
>
> "There is a huge gap between advertised broadband speeds and the actual
> speeds users can achieve, research has shown.
>
> A survey by consumer group Which? found that broadband packages
> promising speeds of up to 8Mbps (megabits per second) actually achieved
> far less.
>
> Tests of 300 customers' net connections revealed that the average
> download speed they were getting was 2.7Mbps. "
>
> [etc.]
>
> Big surprise there!


Yep, this group has been 'championing' revising these advertising lies
that ISP's use - let's hope there is soon a change in the law.


--
My reply address is valid, but incoming mail is set to 'auto-delete'
so will not be seen. Please post replies to the group.
XPS M1710 / 2.16 GHz dual core / 2Gb DDR2 / nVidia GeForce 7950GTX

/Tx2 <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> On Thu, 2 Aug 2007 11:45:36 +0100 David Horne
> from the village of (E-Mail Removed)
> felt we might be interested in the following...
>
>
> >
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6924866.stm
> >
> > "There is a huge gap between advertised broadband speeds and the actual
> > speeds users can achieve, research has shown.
> >
> > A survey by consumer group Which? found that broadband packages
> > promising speeds of up to 8Mbps (megabits per second) actually achieved
> > far less.
> >
> > Tests of 300 customers' net connections revealed that the average
> > download speed they were getting was 2.7Mbps. "
> >
> > [etc.]
> >
> > Big surprise there!
>
>
> Yep, this group has been 'championing' revising these advertising lies
> that ISP's use - let's hope there is soon a change in the law.

I'd approve a change to something like:

"almost up to the 2Mbps service you used to have before we started
calling it 8Mbps!"



--
(*) ... of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
http://www.davidhorne.net - real address on website
"Abominable, loyal, blind, apparently subservient."
Pres. Carter on Ex-Pres. Blair- May, 2007

"Mortimer" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:46b1bb15$0$1609$(E-Mail Removed)...

> They quote one example where someone gets 0.09 Mbps (ie 90 kB/sec). Even
> if their line is only syncing at 288 or 576 kbps, 90 is very poor, even
> taking into account contention.
>

You should expect at least 160 kbits/s (20 kbytes/s) on an 8M line with 50:1
contention (any more and you are getting more than you are paying for
) )
unless you are really unlucky with the amount of P2P traffic you will get a
lot more).

However with such a low sync speed it is probably not working correctly at
all and he probably shouldn't have the service in the first place.
I wonder if they have investigated the line at all?

"/Tx2" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) T...

>
> Yep, this group has been 'championing' revising these advertising lies
> that ISP's use - let's hope there is soon a change in the law.
>
>
ITYM some posters in this group.. by no means all.

There is nothing wrong with advertising it as upto 8M.
What should they advertise it as?

As long as they state that speed depends on distance and other factors then
what else can they do?

dennis@home <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> "/Tx2" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed) T...
>
> >
> > Yep, this group has been 'championing' revising these advertising lies
> > that ISP's use - let's hope there is soon a change in the law.
> >
> >
> ITYM some posters in this group.. by no means all.
>
> There is nothing wrong with advertising it as upto 8M.
> What should they advertise it as?

"fairly crap"?

--
(*) ... of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
http://www.davidhorne.net - real address on website
"Abominable, loyal, blind, apparently subservient."
Pres. Carter on Ex-Pres. Blair- May, 2007