BBC News reports that Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulatory body, has asked the six largest UK ISPs to explain why consumers often don't get the broadband speeds that are advertised [click for full article].

Zero Flaws' view

ZF says that this action has been on the cards for a while, as it's rare that any consumer broadband user receives an effective speed close to the advertised rate. However it's not all the ISP's fault - once outside the ISP's network (for example, browsing to the ISP's web page is within their network, but browsing to ZeroFlaws.net takes you outside) you are at the mercy of prevailing Internet conditions. If the network links you're using are congested, your effective bandwidth will suffer. That's why online speed test websites are at best a rough indicator; the most accurate speed test is to simply download several large files concurrently from your own ISP's web or FTP servers.

The issue here is advertising terminology. Much like how financial investment advertisements contain a disclaimer of "the value of investments can fall as well as rise", broadband adverts should clearly state that the claimed speed is under best conditions only, and that effective speeds can be much lower.