Thousands of UK households getting half the advertised broadband speed

British households are paying for broadband services that are just half the advertised speeds, a study has found.

Consumer watchdog Which? looked at the result of 235,000 uses of its broadband speed checker to find out how many people are actually receiving the service for which they signed up.

Broadband customers who were paying for a 38 megabits per second (Mbps) service were receiving an average of 19Mbps, the watchdog found. And those promised a super-fast 200Mbps broadband were getting just 52Mbps.

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The findings have been published ahead of the release next week of new Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) guidelines for internet service providers (ISPs), says Alphr.

The rules will force the firms to advertise average broadband speed figures that take into account at least 50% of households at peak hours, the tech site says. At the moment, ISPs only have to quote speed figures that account for 10% of UK households.

Welcoming the changes, Which? head of home services Alex Neill said that broadband customers have “continuously been let down by unrealistic adverts” and that internet speeds that “won’t ever live up to expectations”.

However, some critics believe the ASA’s measure do not go far enough.

The BBC reports that network infrastructure provider CityFibre is calling for the ASA to ban the word “fibre” in adverts if the ISP is promoting connections that also “partially rely” on copper phone wires.

CityFibre founder Greg Mesch told the broadcaster that the new rules fail to address how faster fibre connections and “copper-based services” are described in advertising, even though “the experience they deliver being worlds apart”.