Ofcom has found that the actual speed of UK Broadband Services is falling far short of that which is advertised.

If you surf the internet between the hours of 4am and 6am and live next to your telephone exchange then you are probably very happy with your internet speed.

According to a comprehensive speed report, by the Regulator Ofcom, the majority of the British people are not getting the broadband services they have signed up, or paid for.

According to the survey DSL Services advertised speeds “up to” 20 Mpbs but only 20% of customers received speeds between 14 and 20 Mpbs. Of the rest of their customers, 32% were getting between 8 and 14 Mpbs and 65% of customers got only 8 Mpbs or less. This very much depends on how far away a customer lives from the telephone exchange because DSL Services run on the old copper wire network and therefore the strength of a line is determined by actual physics.

Another reason that your broadband speed can be affect is at which time of the day you surf the net. At peak times of the day more people will be using the internet and therefore slow it down for everyone. For Virgin Media customers this is the biggest factor. The differences between advertised and actual broadband speed is dependant on congestion. Basically all customers are reliant of the size of the “pipes” between the ISP’s network and their homes/businesses.

BT is going to be rolling out the “Next Generation” services, called Fibre-to-the-cabinet, to almost two thirds of British homes. This replaces the old copper wires with faster fibre optic cables from the telephone exchange to the green cabinets at the end of the street. These green cabinets house the wires at street level. FTTC will dramatically improve the line length issue with the installation of a number of new street cabinets. This will of course, depend on the level on investment from BT and the number of these cabinets that actually get installed.

As that investment gets under way people who live near a new green cabinet will be able to celebrate faster broadband speeds but it could take a while for other customers to get close.

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