A petition has been launched online, asking the government to investigate internet service providers (ISPs) who over-subscribe and therefore reduce available bandwidth.
Lee Sexton, a broadband customer who launched the petition on the Downing Street website, stated: "Our service is being degraded and this needs to be investigated now and thoroughly as the state of broadband in the UK is now suffering."
Quote:
The petition reads:
Internet providers are quite clearly oversubscribing on their networks and are resorting to throttling speeds to lower congestion. The problem is they are selling a product by speed and are not offering this speed at peak times (anywhere from 4pm to 1am) which means the service you are paying for is not the service you bought or was advertised. With todays broadband services, eg Games on Demand (up to 4gb per download), movies on demand (up to 2gb in size) and music on demand (anything up to 300mb per album) ISP's have severely underestimated customers usage and rely on this underestimate to continue to oversubscribe their networks and keep the status quo. The problem now being is that the status quo is no longer maintained as we are now being throttled on speeds and blocking ports to restrict the speed we signed up for. The ISP's are blaming pirates but as I have clearly shown this is not the case, it is normal useage for todays bandwidth hungry services and it is unacceptable that our service is being degraded and this needs to be investigated NOW and THOROUGHLY as the state of broadband in the UK is now suffering.
However, independent ISP information provider ISPreview countered Mr Sexton's claims, blaming customer naivety over price.
"The reality is that you get what you pay for," the website explained, adding that there were "too many consumers being mis-led to believe that a quality service can be had for nearly nothing".
Ofcom is currently investigating ISP broadband speed provision, after its consumer panel suggested that an ISP code was needed.
If the new guidelines are introduced, broadband firms could face action if they provide inaccurate information over broadband speeds.
Currently, there are 1830 names on the petition. The deadline for adding your name to the petition is 31 May 2008.
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