Get the Message?

First up, I’ve been on annual leave for the last working week, so forgive me for not posting in a while.

On my return, I’m happy to see the inaugural email in our monthly ‘Speed Demon’ series is currently winging its way to you. Contained therein you will find details of the latest broadband deals, expert advice from our resident boffin Michael Phillips and also a contribution from yours truly. Most pertinently however, you will see our shiny new broadband speed league table.

Fashioned from 3 months worth of data (with over 3000 readings taken for each supplier), this is a definitive account of speeds delivered by all the major ISPs during spring/summer 2008.

The verdict? Absolute rubbish.

I won’t start naming and shaming individual ISPs because there really is no need, they’re all underperforming.

Taking into account the range of connection speeds on offer (from 1Mbps to 24Mbps), you would expect the span between the fastest and slowest ISPs to be equally as wide, no? There is just 3.5Mbps between the top and bottom ISPs though, and you could pretty much throw a blanket over all 13 ISPs in the table given how close they are in terms of performance.

To me, this is incredulous. With certain ISPs advertising their service as ‘superfast broadband’, how can being one or two Mbps faster (on average) than a ‘standard’ broadband service be classified as ‘superfast’? 20Mbps faster and I’d happily let you use that ‘superfast’ tag, but one or two? Don’t make me laugh.

Also, the fact remains that even the well placed ISPs (Be Broadband at 5.77Mbps and O2 Broadband at 4.86Mbps) are woefully underachieving. You do know that broadband users in Japan and South Korea get average speeds of 55-70Mbps right? Clearly, when ‘up to’ 100Mbps arrives, it will actually mean 7Mbps.

Take Be Broadband out of the equation and the span between the remaining 12 ISPs is just 2.5Mbps. What’s the point in having league tables if each ISP is delivering pretty much the same speed? It doesn’t tell you anything.

Any consumers who focus on speed when evaluating which ISP to sign up with are foolish, it’s something I’ve said before and I’ll doubtless say it again. Look beyond speeds and hone in on data charges, headline costs, customer service phone line costs, hidden hardware charges, hardware compatibility and perhaps even the attitude of sales staff in stores.

Don’t get too caught up in the speed issue, there’s very little to choose between all 13 ISPs in our league table.