following the phone-in scandal which beset some public service broadcasters, another scandal broke out, this time involving the broadband companies. Which? tested 300 consumer internet connections, which were promised speeds of up to 8Mb/sec. It found the average speed to be just 2.7Mb/sec, with the slowest connection crawling along at less than 0.09Mb/sec.
So it seems that consumers have been misled by the advertisment of the broadband companies, however, media regulator Ofcom appeared not to be in a hurry to address the situation, saying that they may look at the issue if there is increasing complaints.
I doubt this would be the right attitude for Ofcom on this issue, and I suspect Ofcom might have been aware of this issue long before the issue was raised by media reports. Actually when Virgin Media and Sky were locked in a bitter fight, they had attacked each other regarding broadband. The infighting between media companies provided some information which would otherwise be concealed between themsleves. If you take the Tube, you will not miss those advertisments by Virgin Media like "broadband, speed, and the truth".
it is hard for Ofcom to miss such revealing advertisement, but the issue seems to be not yet on their agenda.
Ofcom may have adhered to the faith that less regulation is better regulation, and only regulate only when necessary. Under this motto, they may have prefered ex-post approach, waiting for the situation to further develop. But in this case, the slow response to the broadband issue could only catch Ofcom off guard, and put them under fire for slow response. I would suggest them deal with it as seriously and quickly as possible, since broadband has been something very comon in our society and would have relate to many people.
Sometimes less regulation is not better regulation.
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Ofcom have been aware of this problem for years - you can read it in the minutes of their meetings then suddenly it stopped being mentioned.
Personally I think all the companies are lying and only full unbundling as "be" are doing will improve speeds.BT dont care as they just sell the wholesale service to other providers.
Worst thing seems that if you switch from a 1mb fixed rate you can get a lower speed on the promised 8mb. I think they should offer everyone a free 1 month trial to see what speed is achievable before a contract is binding after all if you bought a car that would do speeds up to 70mph youd expect it to do that and not be slower than a pushbike!
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