Samuel Clemens once quipped that 'there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." So the U.K. Office of Communications says real-world end-user average peak throughput is about half the "advertised" broadband speed users pay for.
On the other hand, Ofcom also notes that average speeds run between 81 percent to 85 percent of the "advertised" speed.
In fact, subscribers on services promising 2 Mbps or less get those speeds about 91 percent of the time. Since most broadband subscribers in the U.K. are on lower-speed tiers of service, the national average speed delivered is about 85 percent of the maximum line speed.
So whether performance is "good" or "bad" is a statistical matter, depending on whether peak throughput at the peak congestion hours are examined, compared to average performance across each day, week or month. "Peak" performance also hinges on matters beyond a service provider's direct control, such as the state of in-home wiring and capabilities of in-home end user equipment.
That said, the difference between "peak" throughput and "average" is directly affected by the fact that access is a shared resource, in the access network, in the aggregation network, on the backhaul networks and at the servers users are trying to communicate with.
The actual throughput received by its national panel of testers was 3.6 Mbps in the 30 days beginning October 23, 2008. That throughput represents 49 percent of the average ‘headline’ speed (7.2 Mbps) and 83 percent of the average maximum line speed (4.3 Mbps), Ofcom reports. Consumers on the most popular broadband headline speed package, advertised as offering "up to’ 8 Mbps," received an average actual throughput speed of 3.6 Mbps, about 45 percent of the headline claim, and they had an average maximum line speed of 4.5 Mbps, representing 56 percent of headline speed.
About 20 percent of testers on the 8 Mbps package received an average speed of less than 2 Mbps. Still, about 83 percent of respondents say they are "happy" with their service, while 21 percent report they are dissatisfied for some reason. About 16 percent express dissatisfaction with the "value for money" they receive and 13 percent are unhappy about service reliability.
About 28 percent of users were unaware what the advertised speed of their connection was. Rural consumers on "up to" 8 Mbps packages received average speeds 13 percent lower than their urban counterparts.
To be sure, Ofcom notes there are many reasons why throughput might be slowed. Congestion on the wider internet, loop length, the condition of the access cables, poor home wiring, absence of filters, computer clock speed or router specs can degrade performance.
Honesty in advertising is an issue, of course. The issue is that broadband access is a shared, best effort resource. There will be times when any single user actually will experience the full advertised throughput. Most of the time, likely not. So long as users use "maximum speed" and "cost" as the key criteria to compare providers, it is not likely the advertising verbiage will change.
The other issue is how to describe "average" speeds, across different provider networks, in ways that are consistent and meaningful, since the actual end user experience always will differ for all sorts of reasons, some not under the direct control of the access provider.
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