Another terrible thing that ISPs practice is overselling the speeds that they can realistically provide – consumers often sign up for contracts for 24 months, in an already competition deprived industry without really knowing the the speed they will receive in the end, if the ISP supplies a slow speed, then the consumer is stuck for the full lenght of their contract and can do nothing about it.

It is like the water company charging someone for water that had leaked from a water mains but has not come though on to the property.
It is like the power company charging for power that had not been used in the property
It is like a milk delivery company delivering 2L bottles of milk that are half full.

IT wouldn’t be legal in other industries, why is it legal for ISP’s?

The reason why they get away with it mostly is that they say that speeds obtained depend on the conditions of the copper cable; however in this day in age ISP’s have the ability to test the network before the broadand is connected – if it is slower than they expect, then they should put the customer on a tarrif that is lower than the speed the cable can obtain, and either cap the connection speed to the tarriff, or better still allow the excess speed for free.

The most infuriating thing about speeds is that it is not the customers cables that are the problem in most cases, it is the cables that ISP’s either own or rent and the infrastructure they are using, and have full control to be able to upgrade or maintain.

It is also a widely spread practice that ISPs are calculating the throughput of speeds in a different way than customers are experiencing at their property boundry, this is very noticable with customers who have had high bandwith plans previously (demonstrating capacity) but have changed to low bandwidth plans, however do not recieve what their plan states despite paying for it. The throughput measured by the provider should be equal to that the customer is experiencing, if this is not happening it should be considered fraud, becuase the provider is in control of both the network and the measurement of the speed and has the ability to increase the speed.

We propose:

THAT: No communications contract shall be entered into without notifying the customer of the speed the communications medium will provide for 99% of the time, any drop in this speed obtained on the client end of over 1% per month shall be considered a breach of contract by the provider.