I read with interest that the latest report from Ofcom has suggested the UK’s largest broadband providers were found to be advertising broadband speeds that could not be experienced by the vast majority of their customers. According to Ofcom, 97% of consumers do not get the broadband speeds advertised by their providers and the gap has widened to an average of 54% between advertised and achievable performance.

The Ofcom findings show that there is a high degree of variation between broadband providers’ claims and the actual quality of service delivered and that only 8% of homes are actually connected to a service that can achieve the highest speeds advertised.

Businesses that are planning to provide remote working facilities for staff, to allow them to work from home, need to be sure that staff can actually do so. The claims made by many providers would lead you to believe that delivering secure remote access to business critical applications, data and telephony should be easily achievable but the reality, especially in remote regions, could be quite different. Ofcom’s report shows that businesses cannot rely on consumer-grade services when implementing flexible working policies as part of their business continuity plans. At very least, they need to consider using ADSL lines or coaxial cable services to overcome the bandwidth issues created by contention on consumer broadband services.

*BBC report into Ofcom broadband performance versus advertised speeds: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10760069