UK Internet Users Says ISPs Failing to Promote Internet Upload Speeds

LONDON - Nov. 17, 2014 - PRLog -- The importance of Internet upload speeds to the quality of a home broadband connection is being overlooked by some providers. A new survey of nearly 1,500 ISPreview.co.uk readers in the United Kingdom (*) has found that 41% of respondents considered upload performance to be an important part of their Internet use (58.5% rated it as "Not Important"), although many ISPs fail to promote it.

The same survey also questioned whether or not the broadband ISPs used by respondents were actively advertising upload speeds alongside their packages. In response just 23% said "Yes", while 44% answered "No" and 33% didn't know. Indeed a quick check around the websites for some of the United Kingdom's largest ISPs reveals significant differences in how upload speeds are promoted.

For example, until very recently BT only fully promoted upload speeds for their superfast BTInfinity (FTTC) products and not their standard copper broadband (ADSL2+) packages, but now they don't seem to promote it at all on their primary package summaries. Separately Virgin Media was found to make no mention of their upload speeds unless customers dug deeper into the website and it's a similar story for Sky Broadband, EE and TalkTalk. Consumer awareness of their own upload speed may be part of the problem, with many having no idea.

Do you know the upload speed of your broadband connection?
Yes - 42.3%
Unsure - 29.7%
No - 27.9%

"It goes without saying that the majority of things consumers do online, such as loading websites, streaming videos or downloading files, requires a good download," said ISPreview.co.uk's Founder, Mark Jackson. "But the modern era of video game consoles and social networking means that most of us are sharing significantly more data than ever before, which requires us to push more information on to the Internet and that's where uploads become most noticeable. Anybody who has ever tried to upload a large batch of high quality pictures or a big holiday video via a connection that can just about muster 1Mbps of upstream performance, which is still fairly common, knows the pain."

"Some ISPs are perhaps concerned that displaying uploads will confuse consumers because most home broadband connections are asymmetric, with uploads often being much slower than downloads. But such concerns could easily be solved by using a simple description and the current lack of information can also create its own problems. For example, people who only see the download speed advertised might incorrectly expect the upload performance to run at the same rate (symmetrical). At the end of the day ISPs need to become more transparent and Ofcom could certainly be doing more to encourage this," concluded Jackson.