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Only one of top 12 ISPs raised listed speed after new truth-in-advertising rule.
Most broadband providers in the UK "have been forced to cut the headline speeds they advertise when selling deals" because of new UK rules requiring accurate speed claims, according to a consumer advocacy group.
"Eleven major suppliers have had to cut the advertised speed of some of their deals, with the cheapest deals dropping by 41 percent," the group wrote last week.
The analysis was conducted by Which?, a brand name used by the Consumers' Association, a UK-based charity that does product research and advocacy on behalf of consumers.
"BT, EE, John Lewis Broadband, Plusnet, Sky, Zen Internet, Post Office, SSE, TalkTalk, and Utility Warehouse previously advertised their standard (ADSL) broadband deals as 'up to 17Mbps,'" the group noted in its announcement on Saturday. "The new advertised speed is now more than a third lower at 10Mbps or 11Mbps."
"TalkTalk has completely dropped advertising speed claims from most of its deals," the consumer group also said. "Vodafone has also changed the name of some of its deals: Fibre 38 and Fibre 76 are now Superfast 1 and Superfast 2."
The new rules were implemented in May by the Committees of Advertising Practice, the UK ad industry's self-regulatory body. Which? said it had been "campaigning for an advertising change since 2013."
Previously, ISPs were allowed to advertise broadband speeds of "up to" a certain amount, even if only one in 10 customers could ever get those speeds, Which? wrote. "But the new advertising rules mean that at least half of customers must now be able to get an advertised average speed, even during peak times (8-10pm)," the group said.
The entry-level speed tiers were apparently the least accurate before the rule change. While advertised speeds dropped the most on entry-level tiers, there were drops in higher-speed tiers as well.
(Score: 3, Funny) by wisnoskij on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:30PM (2 children)
It sounds like fraud laws would of had nothing to do with this at all, and the government just added laws that prevented ISPs from including some (correct) information in their ads.
If an ISP has a bunch of 50MB ?distribution centers? (what are those called?) advertising "up to 50MBs" is the technically correct way of advertising. Sure, most of their customers will not be within the handful of meter radius that is needed to get 100% of that speed, but advertising 25MB connections because that is what the average customer will get is simply wrong.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday August 09 2018, @01:54PM (1 child)
So the customer needs to understand the intricacies of exactly how a business operates in order to know if they're actually going to be receiving the service they've paid for?
If you agree to sell something, it is YOUR responsibility to ensure that you can actually provide the service you have advertised. If the ISP doesn't even know what speed the customer is getting, then it's certainly not reasonable to expect that the customer would. And if the ISP does know, then offering anything else IS fraud.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Thursday August 09 2018, @03:56PM
Yes, exactly. Which is what the government in this case is outlawing.
With this new law, the ISPs either have to not give a speed at all (so you have no way of comparing offered services), or give an inaccurate statistical speed. The government is literally forcing companies to lie to their customers if they want to include the single most important feature in their advertisements.
If a tourist were to ask you what the speed of that cities streets were. Would you tell them 25 mph, or would conduct a study to find out the (pick random statistic model: mean, median, or mode) of (cars, trucks, bikes, and jaywalkers) including stops, traffic jams, speeders, and weather influences.