Ofcom seeks volunteers for broadband monitoring

Ofcom is looking for people to take part in the next step of its broadband speed research.

The purpose is to establish a picture of the true speeds people in the country get.

Ofcom’s initial research, published in July last year showed speeds were significantly below the advertised headline speeds given by internet service providers (ISPs).

For example, the average ‘up to’ headline speed in April 2009 was 7.1Mbits/sec but the average speed was only 4.1Mbits/sec; with nearly one-fifth of UK broadband customers getting less than 2Mbits/sec.

This mirrored the findings from Computeractive's 2008 Crystal Clear broadband campaign.

However the regulator believes that over the next 12 months things may change radically.

The issue of broadband speeds is high on the political agenda. There is the proposed Universal Service Commitment to provide a minimum of 2Mbits/sec across the country, the controversial 50p per month broadband tax.

ISPs are also continuing to invest in faster networks.

Now Ofcom wants to track this and has extended its research for another two years so it can get an accurate overview of what is happening.

The regulator will again work with broadband advice site, Samknows, its technical partner for the project.

Alex Salter, Samknows chief executive officer, said: “What started out as a project to monitor and report on the UK’s broadband connectivity in general, instead highlighted that a clear discrepancy exists between what the ISPs are saying and what the end consumer is actually receiving.

“What we’re looking to measure in the forthcoming project is how this ISP performance will improve as consumers switch to services which are being advertised as significantly faster.”

Ofcom is looking for volunteers all around the country; not just cities and urban areas to sign up. Volunteers need to have a contract with one of the following ISPs; AOL, BT – ADSL, BT Infinity (the ISP’s fibre to the curb service), O2 / Be, Orange, Plusnet, Sky, Talktalk and Virgin Media.

It hopes to get enough people registered during March to get the equipment sent out to volunteers. Samknows has developed what it calls a ‘white box’.

This is essentially a router that will monitor the volunteer’s ISP's network; but not their home network or web traffic.

People who volunteer for this project at the Samknows website, will also be given access to their own data on a special page. This will allow them to track the performance of their broadband connection.