Virgin Media thought to be fastest by customers

According to a recent report Virgin Media has come top of a poll rating providers on the speeds that are being received by customers compared to speeds that are being promised.

The actual speeds that many customers get from their service providers compared to the speeds that are promised by the service provider can vary dramatically. However, in a recent poll that rated providers on the speeds that customers were actually receiving communications giant Virgin Media came in top place. One official said that Virgin Media “along with Tiscali and BT shows considerable improvement in its promises versus its delivery.”

The last survey was carried out in January of this year, and the results of this most recent poll showed that the only Internet Service Provider to show a drop in actual versus promised speed by Sky. However, this appeared to be with certain packages, and the report stated: “The damage to Sky seems to be mostly in its 8Mb and 16Mb packages, where take-up has increased but reported delivery speeds have decreased in proportion.”

The officials involved in the pool also commented on the emerging 24Mb broadband packages, stating: “Over 20Mb is where the ADSL2+ and cable packages start to increase their significance. Indications from responses are that cable experience is moving closer to the advertised speed while the high speed DSL experience, as expected, tails off as the limits of the technology approach. Consumers still regard speed as a key benchmark of their ISP experience and are less likely to leave an ISP that lives up to expectations. It can be dangerous to promise more than can be delivered and operators appear, for the most part, to be taking this to heart.”

One industry official said: “Despite the ‘up to’ clause in broadband advertising, many consumers feel cheated when they receive significantly lower than their advertised speed, so it’s great to see that ISPs are working hard to improve their customers’ experience. If you are experiencing snail-pace broadband, talk to your provider to see if there’s anything they can do to speed things up,” he advised. “There’s also a whole host of things you can do to try to improve your speed from ensuring that your wireless connection is secure to installing an iPlate .”