One of the most frustrating issues for those that go online a lot is having to wait around for pages to load and for websites to come up, which can waste a great deal of time for Internet users. However, with today’s high speed broadband packages and advanced technology many Internet users expect this problem to be a thing of the past, as they sign up to expensive packages that promise to deliver super fast speeds.

A recent survey, however, has revealed that many customers are not actually receiving the high speed Internet services that they have signed up for – in fact, according to the result of the study only one fifth of broadband households in the UK is actually getting the Internet and download speeds that they expected to receive with the package to which they signed up.

Customers in rural areas tend to receive much slower access and services than those in urban areas, and there are various factors that can affect the Internet speed, such as the distance of the lien from the phone exchange, line quality, and wiring in the home. Industry professionals said that many people on speeds of 16MB – which should mean web pages and sites coming up pretty much instantly – were having to wait for a few minutes in some cases for websites to load.

Another example given was the sixteen percent of Sky customers that have signed up to the 16MB broadband package. According to research only six percent of these customers actually get to enjoy 16MB speeds, with most receiving fifty percent or less of the advertise speed for which they have signed up.

One industry professional stated: ‘Line interference, the quality of wiring into and around your home, its distance from the telephone exchange and the number of people sharing the same provider connection in your area at the same time affect broadband speed. I urge people to check what deal they are on then ask their broadband provider for a free upgrade.’