ADSL Max is the advertising misleading?

BruceS_2

Hi,

I am starting to think that the advertising of max is misleading.

I the majority or adverts they have a large test/graphic stating "up to 8mb"
But this is totally false as BT has capped the speed through profiling to a max of 7.1mb. So the fastest ANYONE using this service will see is in fact 7mb.
Well actually only 6.8/6.9 if you take into account overheads. This is ideal circumstances as further from the exchange the slower you get.

So although your modem may say 8128 it will never ever see 8mb!

I have wrote to ASA and i used the data table from http://www.dslzoneuk.net/adslmax_explained.php
But they did not believe me and dismissed the data from the website.

Whats going on, i see that as a clear breach in that is misleading current/to be users of this Service.

What do you think?

I've noticed some like Pipex mentioning it at the buttom of thier sign up/advert page but many if not majority do not.

mrJ_5

it is 8mb at the exchange... if you live inside of the excahnge, you may get 7.15mb or something like that - but it is advertised as up to 8mb, which it just is... as with everything - it depends on line length

if car manufacturers advertised their cars as up to 112mph - it would be ok, but legally, you can only go up to 70mph - unless you have a lot of land

griff.

I am around 500m from the Exchange as the crow flies.
Source: http://www.dslzoneuk.net/

Bruce, I am starting to think you might be right.

Could you give a little more detail on both your evidence, and the response from the ASA ?

mrJ_5

... it isn't how the crow flies though... your line could be something like 750m long

hurrah

Virgin Media (Non Cable) say in their legal stuff.

"We'll make sure that you receive the highest broadband speed your phone line can handle, however the actual speed you receive can be affected by factors such as phone line quality or distance from your local exchange. This means you could actually receive up to 4 Mb, 5 Mb or 6 Mb - basically anything up to 8 Mb."

isofa

The actual speed is affected by a mass of factors, obviously first and foremost the line distance from you and your local exchange.

First do a check on the BT site and see what the theoretical maximum should be, then work from there.

If you have overground (line from a telegraph pole) wiring, then you'll never see that maximum figure. If you have underground cabling (in more modern house), you may get closer to it, but will be unlikely to reach it unless you live next door to the exchange.

However the quality of your internal wiring also makes a difference. The best speed you'll achieve is from the BT master socket with a good quality ADSL filter (or preferably an ADSL faceplate like those from ADSL nation). If you are running from an extension line, the quality of the internal house wiring will made a difference, long low quality extensions = poorer quality signal.

Also your ADSL router will have an effect, make sure it's set-up correctly and check the signal to noise ratio (which gives a good indication of part of the line quality) and also the attenuation. The router's homepage will also show your sync speed.

Your ISP will be crucial - good quality (and obviously not the "free" ISPs) will offer better connections, speed and service in most cases. Comparing Orange with Zen for example would be no contest, Zen connections might cost much more, but the speed and reliability will be well worth paying - in my opinion (btw I'm not associated with Zen!)

Then obviously you have to realise that the connection isn't dedicated to you it has a "contention" ration - usually about 30:1 or 50:1, so the more people in your street with an active ADSL service, the slower your connection will be, especially in peak periods - you are essentially sharing the lines with the other locals.

Depending on where you are downloading from, that will also affect your speed, if you are downloading from a site with no other visitors, who has their servers on a high speed connection, you'll get a good download speed, on a site with millions of other visitors, hosted with slower connections - will obviously result in slower access.

Good ISPs will have stats pages listing all manner of data on your connection and line.

You can improve your connection up to a point, but physical distance and contention means you'll never get 100% efficiency.

If you use a well rated, higher quality ISP, you will get a better rate. As with everything in life - you get what you pay for.

Couple of links for testing speed:

http://speedtester.bt.com

and

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html

Hope that helps!