Last year we launched our Crystal Clear campaign to get more clarity for consumers about their broadband speeds.

With 62 per cent of the 3,000 plus people who responded to our survey getting less than half the speed advertised for their service, we felt that it was time that the regulator Ofcom took action.

We pushed hard for this and in June Ofcom announced that it was introducing a Code of Practice (CoP) that would give consumers a better deal.

The CoP requires internet service providers (ISPs) to give consumers a clearer understanding of the speeds they can get and to ensure that they are on an appropriate broadband package. But what does this actually mean for the consumer?

The bad old days
While speed is not the only criterion that colours people’s perception of their internet service, it is a major contributing factor. Because of this a number of ISPs have been guilty of advertising speeds that many customers cannot obtain.

Although some have been rapped over the knuckles by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for not making it clear that most people would never get the advertised speeds, most have protected themselves by using the words 'up to' before speeds in adverts.

The problem is that many people take little notice of those words. They genuinely believe they will get at least near to these advertised headline speeds and don’t understand why they don’t.

What ISPs must do
The CoP says that ISPs must now be more upfront about the actual speeds customers can genuinely expect to get. This means before someone signs up for a service, ISPs have to give a very good approximation of the estimated maximum speed the consumer’s line can support; so if the service the customer is interested in offers up to 8Mbits/sec and the customer’s maximum line speed will only reach 2Mbits/sec, this must be made clear.

Ofcom has also told ISPs they will have to provide a facility on their websites so that consumers themselves can find out, in a clear and easily accessible manner, what their estimated access line speed is.

Because even these maximum speeds can be influenced by a number of factors, ISPs also have to explain what these are. This will include what the ISPs’ contention ratios are (the number of people sharing the same connection) and the number of these subscribers online at any one time, by time of day and so on.

If the customer continues to receive an access line speed significantly lower than the estimate provided when they signed up, the ISP should offer the customer an alternative broadband package. If this is not possible, or the alternative is unacceptable, the Code gives no redress. However, the customer could consider the small claims court for breach of contract to end the service.

Ofcom has also demanded that customers be given clear information on an ISP’s traffic shaping and management policy. Sometimes called ‘bandwidth throttling’, this is when an ISP attempts to control the amount of data being sent over its network.

This results in connection speeds dropping. How this is handled varies from ISP to ISP; some will target people who download a lot, others will apply it to periods when a lot of people are online.

Ofcom said it would use mystery shopping exercises to check that ISPs honour their commitment. It also said that if it finds this voluntary approach is ineffective, it will consider introducing formal regulations.

Our verdict
Most experts are reasonably happy with the Code, saying it is a start, and already 37 ISPs (90 per cent of the major providers) have signed up. However, although they have six months to implement its rules, outwardly nothing has changed. Also the Code does not take on board the advertising factor.

ISPs are still advertising services saying customers can expect ‘up to’ anything from 8Mbits/sec to 22 Mbits/sec, yet a new poll from Uswitch shows that fewer than 1 in 10 customers with ‘up to 8Mbits/sec’ connections are confident that they receive their full 8Mbits/sec allowance.

We hope the voluntary approach will work but Ofcom may find that it needs to introduce formal regulations. It did so after the voluntary CoP that was meant to give consumers easy access to migration authorisation codes (MACs) was routinely flouted by ISPs.

Steps that ISPs have to take under the code
The steps that ISPs are required to take include:
• Providing customers at the point of sale with an accurate estimate of the maximum speed that their line can support, whether it is in the shop, over the internet or on the phone.
• Resolving technical issues to improve speed and offering customers the choice to move onto a lower speed package when estimates given are inaccurate.
• Ensuring all sales and promotion staff have a proper understanding of the products they are selling so they can explain to their customers the meaning of the estimates provided at the point of sale.
• Providing consumers with information on usage limits and alerting customers when they have breached them.