The need for speed
Cable company Virgin media has been conducting its own investigation into the accuracy of online broadband speedtesting services since at least last October and probably earlier. Today it announced its assessment of how the speedtesting industry has progressed in the intervening five months.
Virgin Media's vested interest in conducting this study is clear: it launched its 50Mb/s service last December, positioning it as the UK's fastest broadband. If the widely used speedtesters don't support that claim then Virgin Media's claims could be questioned by its target market.
The study started by just looking at 50Mb/s but then moved to incorporate 20 and 10Mb/s services too. Virgin Media found that many of the most prominent speedtesters were measuring up to what it considers to be acceptable levels of accuracy, but there were still quite a few that didn't.
"We're dismayed to find that for years, many speedtest and comparison sites have been misleading the public on ISP performance. Consumers rely on these sites for clear advice and honest results," said Jon James, director of broadband at Virgin Media.