Virgin media have been given a slap on the wrist by the Advertising Standards Authority because they overstated broadband speeds in adverts.

I understand when it comes to advertising there has to be small print saying people won’t always receive the top speed mentioned depending on time of day, quality of line, etc. but I’m not sure why it isn’t followed through to fair trading after you sign up.

There is a larger issue here altogether meaning that ISPs are misselling broadband entirely. If I get a 8Mb/sec line I expect to get close to that stated speed at some point in the day. If it never gets above 2Mb/sec surely I should be charged the cost of a 2Mb/sec line? OK there are various factors that effect this especially line quality when it comes to ADSL. However I believe that when you are setting up a new broadband connection the ISP should do a line test and provide you with a cost, a maximum speed and a minimum speed. This way it is totally transparent to the customer and if there are problems they have a point where they can complain they are not receiving an adequate service.

I’ve experienced speeds of 256Kb/sec on a 8Mb/sec connection, only 3% of the speed sold, and been told by BT nothing is wrong. Clearly they were under-performing here but I had no way of complaining as there was no technical fault to speak of. Does this sound right to you?

Yes there are many variable factors when providing broadband but these could be taken into account and the contract amended accordingly.

In addition this also brings up the subject of net neutrality - should broadband providers be able to limit bandwidth according to agreements they have with content providers? No! If I pay for 8Mb/sec I pay for 8Mb/sec to every location on the net I choose! Underinvestment in your infrastructure is not a reason to try and screw over your customers to try avoid needed upgrades.

It’s about time the whole issue of selling broadband should be tightened up.

Further to my earlier post about Virgin Media putting services into the “Internet bus lane” unless a premium is paid there are some people coming up with more interesting ways of rebelling against this.

A lot of people are showing understandable shock about Virgin Media’s stance and it isn’t exactly a good plan to sell their service generally - I’d personally prefer an ISP that will provide me access to everything I want at the fastest possible rate not just what they are being paid for.

There is a lot of mentioning of a certain Mr Richard Branson’s name and how he could be involved with this kind of thing? I seem to remember however (and I’m happy to be corrected) Virgin wasn’t the largest component when they merged with NTL. NTL had a awful reputation for customer service and of course the Virgin brand was very strong so merging and taking the Virgin Media name made a lot of sense. Not for Virgin unfortunately it would seem as I think this has been incredibly damaging to the Virgin brand as a whole. Not Mr Branson’s finest hour.

Well further to my earlier post “Video is putting ISPs under strain” the new CEO of Virgin Media has jumped in saying net neutrality is “a load of bollocks”. Hmmm eloquently put.

Essentially it would seem that Virgin Media are negotiating deals with content providers to provide a faster service. So if a provider doesn’t pay Virgin Media their service will be negatively affected by throttling the bandwidth.

So Virgin Media is the new media highwayman now? Holding companies to ransom. Stand and deliver - your money or your service is going to be a flop! It might be the time to bring back hanging.