About broadband speeds

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It's hard enough to decide which broadband package is right for you, without any worries about what broadband speed you will actually receive. Actual broadband speeds - versus the advertised broadband speeds - have become a national talking point lately. Here's our view on it.

If you've specifically been looking for a superfast broadband package because of high-bandwidth tasks that you do online (online gaming, movie downloads, etc), receiving a consistently lower speed can really affect your life.

But if you thought you were paying for any speed - whether 1Mb or 16Mb - and you then receive a much slower download speed, even if it was promoted as "up to" that speed, you're going to feel hard done by, to put it mildly.

What causes slow broadband?

Lots of factors can cause slow internet speeds. These factors include:

distance between you and the BT exchange - this is a major cause of slow speeds. The further you are from the exchange, the slower your average speeds.
attenuation - you can gradually lose broadband signal as it makes its way to your home. This can occur because of the distance between you and the exchange (see above) or because of poor quality cables
lots of people online - evenings are particularly busy as so many people are online in the evening (and doing bandwidth-munching tasks like downloading film trailers)
contention - your broadband package will have a contention ratio. For home broadband this is often 50:1 though business packages may only have 10:1 contention. It means 50 people are sharing the bandwidth on an ISP's connection. If all of them are online at once your broadband will slow down.
problems with your own pc - viruses or spyware on your own computer can also cause your broadband to run slow

Broadband speeds in the news

This month, Ofcom's Consumer Panel announced that it was questioning six of the top broadband providers in the UK as to why customers don’t get the broadband speeds advertised with their chosen broadband package.

Although they accepted that this could often be down to technical factors, they also made several suggestions on how broadband providers and ISPs could make it clearer to broadband buyers what speed they were likely to get, and offer ways out of a contract where advertised speed vs actual speed is an issue.

Computeractive magazine has also taken a clear stand on this issue with its Crystal Clear Broadband campaign.

UK Broadband Finder view

We agree that broadband providers need to provide more information on likely broadband speeds.

We also think it is important that until broadband providers start providing more information, we make it clear on this website that an "up to" broadband speed is the theoretical maximum on the type of line you have, not necessarily the speed you will receive.

1. So we've added the following information to each of our broadband package pages: NOTE ON BROADBAND SPEEDS: Top speeds can vary significantly, due to factors such as your distance from the local exchange. You should bear this in mind when selecting a broadband package.

This copy also appears at the top of our broadband package listing, and on every provider information page.

2. When you add your phone number or postcode into our broadband checker, you'll see a Show Map link at the top of your package results page - click on this and you can see where you are, and where your local BT exchange is (marked with H and E - H is home, E is exchange).

3. UK Broadband Finder also includes a free speed test which you can try here. Test your broadband speed at different times of day as speeds can vary.

4. And we are finding out how fast your actual broadband download speeds are in relation to the headline download speed on your package - so please take a few seconds to fill in our poll.

The issue of actual broadband speeds vs advertised maximum speeds will stay in the news - we'll keep you posted.

UK Broadband Finder note on blogs: First published 16 October 2007. Please note that blog posts remain live, and any offers or information may no longer be current when you view this page.