Mobile broadband providers cannot deliver speeds they advertise

It has been claimed by a broadband industry group that providers are often advertising mobile broadband speeds that their networks are not capable of delivering.

One broadband industry group has recently claimed that some mobile broadband providers are advertising up to speeds that their networks are not capable of delivery. Officials from the group stated many mobile broadband providers claim to offer speeds of up to 7.2Mbps but the practical average that the networks deliver is just 1.2Mbps.

The group claims that mobile broadband providers are often advertising maximum mobile broadband speeds that networks in the UK cannot deliver because they are not capable of doing so. The group also named a handful of providers that it was aiming its criticism at, which were Virgin Media, 3, and Vodafone.

An official from the group said: “A company such as T-Mobile, advertising a more realistic ‘up to’ speed on its mobile broadband products of 4.5Mbps, may be seen by many consumers as slower than 3 or Vodafone, when our speed test results show that, on average, it is quicker.”

He also said that whilst the dongles were perhaps capable of delivering the 7.2Mbps speeds claimed the networks were not, and consumers would be lucky to get 1.2Mbps. He said: “The dongles maybe technically capable of this [7.2Mbps], but their networks certainly aren’t.”

For many people speed is one of the main things that they look at when choosing fixed or mobile broadband services, and therefore these claims could be seen as being misleading by some people when they are unable to get anywhere near the advertised maximum speed.

Source – Webuser