According to Ofcom, the speed of broadband in the UK has an average of 6.8 Mbps (megabits per second) but there is a vast difference between advertised and real speeds.
Nearly half of the users of broadband are now available in packages with advertised speeds above 10Mbps but less achieve it.
The report of Ofcom that comes two times in a year in the condition of the broadband market advocated changes to advertising.
Virgin Media blamed competitors of deceiving public.
According to the report, the average broadband speed rose to 10% in the previous six months as many people try speedy services.
The gap between the advertised and real speed has increased in the same time period. The average advertised speed was 15Mbps, 8.2Mbps more than the average real speed.
It also revealed that more than one third of the clients of services advertised as “up to” 24Mbps, in reality got speed of 4Mbps or less.
“The research is still telling us that some consumers are not receiving anywhere near the speeds that are being advertised by some ISPs,” said Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards.
The security people are into arguments for changes in supervision on advertising “so that consumers are able to make more informed decisions based on the adverts they see”.
The report tells that Superfast broadband is now available to 57% of UK homes.
Three-quarters of services by broadband are still provided by copper based ADSL technologies that would always have restrictions regarding speed according to the distance between home and telephone exchange.
The other reasons that cause the speed to decrease are the wiring quality in the house and the time of day in which the service is used.
Only ISP to come near to the advertised speed is Virgin Media as cable services are not affected by distance.
It has leaded the drive to alter the method of advertising broadband.
Jon James, executive director of broadband for Virgin Media, said: “The gulf between what’s advertised and what speeds customers get continues to grow.”
“We remain concerned that people paying for fast broadband are still being misled and believe it is absolutely essential that consumers have all the information they need to make an informed choice,” he added.
Broadband advertising is recently being examined by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Its report is anticipated in few months.
In a strange turn, in the previous month it gave judgement that drive of Virgin Media against fake advertising automatically violated rules on advertising.
According to Andrew Ferguson, co-founder of broadband news site ThinkBroadband some extra things are required to be done to describe the differences between cable and ADSL but is uncertain for alteration to advertising is the right method.
“Adverts will shift to lifestyle advertising rather than actual facts, and some people may be denied access to products because they would drag the average speed down,” he said.
Ofcom has inducted a practice code to assist in informing the people about their probable speed before dealing in a service.
It advocates that broadband customers need to be provided a range of speed instead of one approximation of the maximum speed on their line.
It even proposes that users need to be permitted to let go their provider without penalty if they get a maximum speed that is nearly low than approximations.
Till now, only Virgin Media, BT, O2 and Sky have agreed to the code.
Michael Phillips, of comparison website broadbandchoices, is unconvinced on how long will the code prevail.
“Ofcom’s code of practice has made some steps in the right direction, but without some more careful thought, there’s still room for a lot of confusion”.
“How will my mum know if a service offering 1Mb – 6Mb is better or worse than one providing 2Mb – 5Mb? She needs to know what speed she’s most likely to receive most of the time,” he said.
According to him, ‘typical speeds’ should be created “the gold standard for speed advertising in the same way that banks use ‘typical APR’ percentages”.