UK Connection Speeds Show Dramatic Drop At Peak
A report from British comparision website Uswitch.com has revealed that broadband speeds in the area can fall by as much as 35% from advertised rates during peak periods.
The study reviewed two million different broadband speed tests and discovered, fairly predictably, that the lowest speeds recorded occured between 7:00pm-9:00pm, generally considered ‘peak times’, with speeds as low as 2.1Mbps noted.
It is the gap between the highest and lowest points in the day which is most noticable, though, as the town of Evesham (England) was recorded as seeing the greatest differential, a 69% difference between the highest and lowest average speeds in a day.
Uswitch also confirmed other more predictable outcomes of their study, with the best time to be online coming at 2:00-3:00am, with average UK speeds of 9.6Mbps.
Uswitch’s Ernest Doku, who was involved in conducting the study, said of its findings: “It really is surprising just how much broadband speeds fluctuate at different times of the day, with drop-offs of almost 70% in some areas of the UK. Not many internet users enjoy the maximum headline broadband speeds offered by providers, and certainly not during the working week.”
Many Internet users are known to complain at the way that service providers ‘control’ the allocation of broadband, with speeds suggested to be ‘throttled’ at peak times, which the providers claim is a vital part of their management process.
One high-profile (and ongoing) complaint came in 2009, when the BBC suggested that service provider BT were holding back on the level of bandwidth issued (without proper warning) to their customers for online streaming services such as the BBC iPlayer during peak periods. BT rebuffed this particular complaint by stating that they cannot offer a ‘free ride’ to people using more broadband-strenuous services such as video streaming.
A recent study from media watchdog Ofcom claims that an average household will download or stream 17GB of data every month, and that with more and more large-sized downloads and streaming options putting a strain on bandwidth allocation, the issue of broadband speeds need to be addressed, with a potential reform starting with Ofcom’s plans to introduce rulings for provider’s descriptions of ‘up to’ and ‘unlimited speeds’ This has come after an Ofcom report in May stated that while the average ‘advertised speed’ of broadband providers was 15Mbps, the average that users actually experienced was a comparatively lowly 6.8.
Some packages from Internet service providers are believed to include download and streaming limits, suggesting that heavy users of video services could be charged extra should they exceed their limits. While it seems to be fair that the providers want to offer a more equal allocation across all of its users, is it false advertising if the speeds achieved rarely match their lofty claimed potential?
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