New broadband rules take effect

Home broadband providers must now ensure that at least 50% of their customers can achieve advertised speeds at peak time under a crackdown to prevent misleading claims.

Until now, firms had been allowed to advertise “up to” speeds as long as they were available to a minimum of just 10% of customers, resulting in widespread complaints from the public.

The Advertising Standards Authority will begin to enforce the tougher standard – that speed claims should be available to at least half of customers between 8pm and 10pm and described in ads as “average” – from this week.