Time for a rethink
Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of thinkbroadband.com, said the research highlights the need for the industry to re-think how it sells broadband.
"Consumers need to be educated about what kind of service they need to cover their daily usage and the industry needs to help them to make informed choices," he added.
Independent research by ICM commissioned by Virgin Media recently found broadband speeds are second only to price for consumers when selecting a broadband provider, but 90 percent of people find it tricky to compare different services as they cannot be sure of the speed they will actually receive.
The survey also discovered Nine out of ten consumers find broadband advertising misleading while 98 percent of people believe the ‘up to' speed tag is unhelpful when choosing a broadband provider.
Another recent report by Ofcom found the average download speed for residential broadband connections remains ‘well below' the speeds that some internet service providers (ISP) continue to advertise. The watchdog has produced a strengthened Voluntary Code of Practice on Broadband Speeds to ensure consumers are given clear information about possible line speeds when they buy a package from an ISP.
O2 will launch new broadband packages next week tailored to consumers' needs rather than by the headline download speeds to avoid any future speed advertising problems.
The company said its ‘The Basics' package is perfect for email and general browsing users, while ‘The Works' caters for heavy data users downloading films and playing connected gaming.
