The notorious ‘up to’ prefix that ISPs use to illustrate the speeds you might expect to achieve while downloading has been put into context by Point Topic’s most recent consumer broadband survey*.
For subscribers to packages up to and including 16 Mbps as the listed speed gets higher the proportion of users actually experiencing it gets lower.
“Of the users who reported subscribing to an ‘up to 16 Mbps’ package, only 4% said that their connection actually provided it,” said Pamela Varley, research analyst at Point Topic.
Figure 1: Percentage of users achieving ‘up to’ speed or higher.
‘Up to package subscribed to % achieving ‘up to’ speed or higher
512 kbps 72%
1 Mbps 60%
2 Mbps 35%
4 Mbps 23%
8 Mbps 15%
16 Mbps 4%
“There are many variables that affect broadband speeds, distance from the exchange, contention, line quality and so on. It is a challenge to be able to factor all these into a calculation that gives you a reliable idea of the actual speed an individual connection will achieve,” says Varley.
The survey data also allows Point Topic to examine the ratio of advertised speeds to achieved speeds by the ‘Big 6’ UK ISPs.
“This ratio shows us how the user experience relates to the advertised speeds,” says Varley, “the closer it is to 1 the closer the speed the user experiences to the speed advertised.”
In this table we have extracted the percentage of users who say they subscribe to a package advertised at more than 2 Mbps and the percentage that report receiving more than 2 Mbps.
Figure 2: Ratio of advertised to reported speeds above 2 Mbps
Sky Virgin Media Tiscali Carphone Warehouse BT Orange
Subscribers to 72.50% 45.24% 60.67% 64.56% 81.65% 64.33%
package with
advertised speed
above 2 mbps
Subscribers who 57.50% 34.23% 43.51% 42.46% 53.44% 40.76% report actual
speed achieved
above 2 Mbps
Ratio 0.79 0.76 0.72 0.66 0.65 0.63
* BroadBand Consumer Survey 5. Conducted for Point Topic by YouGov Jan 2008. 4000 respondents.
***END***
For more information and associated charts and tables, please contact:
Point Topic: Oliver Johnson
Email: oliver {at} point-topic(.)com
Tel. +44 (0) 20 7812 0506
About Point Topic
Point Topic is an analyst company focusing entirely on broadband. Point Topic’s international services have a global reputation for providing the most up-to-date and authoritative user statistics, supplier profiles and applications reports on DSL, FTTx, cable and other broadband services worldwide.
Point Topic, reg. in England 3503830. 175 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X 8UE.
|
TechWhack on Facebook
|
