So, you’ve got “up to 8Mbps” broadband right ? Err… Well, no … you don’t actually. Even when advertised as up to 8Mbps you’ll usually find that your broadband actually never reaches anywhere near that. A survey by consumer watchdog “Which?” reveals that on average you’ll only get 2.7Mbps from your “up to” 8Mbps connection.
300 people were surveyed and, in reality “up to 8Mbps” should probably actually be described as “up to 3Mbps if your lucky”. Although many connections “sync” at 8Mbps the actual throughput rarely goes above 3Mbps due to contention and distance from the exchange. The odd lucky browser did have speeds of 6.7Mbps, but this was rare.
This has again raised the issue of misleading advertising for the broadband “Max” products.
Link – Which? – Broadband Speed