Customers should have the speed and service that they have paid for, shopper-focused watchdog Which? has said.

By urging the UK’s broadband providers to boost their levels of service, it is hoped that  the increasingly interactive search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies of firms will be hugely benefited by a greater reliability of speeds and connections.

The instruction from the consumer body comes after it carried out a survey of 2,000 of its members. With the results being revealed in March, it said that 45% of broadband customers had to endure content crashing download speeds.

The survey also said that more than 50% of the respondents were coping with sluggish performance from their broadband, either all of the time or on a regular basis. This is worrying, as page visitors are likely to quickly move on to another site if a page does not load almost instantly.

The watchdog’s executive director, Richard Lloyd, said:

“The internet is an essential part of modern life, yet millions of us are getting frustratingly slow speeds… It’s less superfast broadband, more super-slow service from companies who are expecting people to pay for speeds they may never get.”

Responding to the allegations, the regulator of the broadband and telecoms industry, Ofcom, said that there were already measures in place to help those suffering from connection and speed issues.

Citing its voluntary code of practice, which major providers are signed up to, a spokeswoman for the body said:

“Ensuring consumers receive a high quality of service from their broadband provider and are fairly treated are high priorities.”

With Which? calling for tougher measures however, Ofcom confirmed that a recent mystery shopping exercise had resulted in a new code of practice currently being developed.

With high-quality content creation essential for firms nowadays, ensuring that it can deliver the necessary return on investment (ROI) is equally important. At the Pressroom, we think that any action taken by the industry to provide this is only sensible.

Steven Morris