Blimey! Zombie Holocaust is taking ages to download

A Shropshire man today became the latest county resident to hit out at internet service providers for failing to give customers the speeds that they advertise.

Stephen Dawson said he paid cash for a broadband connection but did not receive the service the provider advertised. Mr Dawson, who lives near Shrewsbury, is the latest in a long line of residents who have criticised internet service providers.

The complaints have been over providers advertising connection speeds that are much quicker than those they actually provide.

The attacks by residents come after two separate surveys, including one by regulator Ofcom, showed that many internet connection speeds were less than half those advertised.

A Shropshire Star survey revealed that residents were playing a broadband lottery because the speeds and cost of connections were largely determined by postcodes.

Today Mr Dawson said he was fed up that he was paying too much money for an internet service that was not actually available.

He said: “I recently read the Shropshire Star article on internet speed and I presume it took at face value the speeds that internet suppliers were offering as the actual speeds that were achieveable.

“I live a few miles south west of Shrewsbury and the maximum speed we can obtain both to upload and download is half a megabyte.”

“This very low speed is primarily caused by the British Telecom infrastructure and will only increase when BT is forced to upgrade the telephone lines and hopefully put in fibre optic,” he said.

“Houses only a few hundred metres away but further away from the telephone exchange do not receive broadband at all.”

Mr Dawson added that his costs were disproportionately high at £15 per month.

He said: “It seems very unfair when a lot of people are paying half as much for speeds 10 to 20 times faster.”

BT has insisted that it provides a good service and has said it is upgrading its system to ensure everybody receives a good connection.