Published in News

BT throttles download speeds

by on02 June 2009

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Tells no-one


Britain's biggest
broadband supplier has been throttling download speeds on its cheapest package without telling anyone.

BT Broadband cuts the speed users can watch video services like the BBC iPlayer and YouTube at peak times. Some customers who thought they were signing up for an 8 megabit per second package can have their speed cut to below 1Mbps.

A BT spokesman denied it was throttling and was simply managing the bandwidth to “optimise the experience for all customers”. It is not clear what the difference is.

BT has said its speed limit is explained on its website, on a page describing its Total Broadband Fair Usage policy. It said that punters who buy the cheaper package will be limited to less than a Megabyte at peak times.

However the move has angered the Beeb which said that its popular iPlayer service was being stuffed up by BT's antics. It also prevents many users from getting its high definition service. Throtting takes place between 1700 and midnight.

BT has also been ignoring complaints, according to the Beeb. It has a theory that traffic which is being identified as iPlayer is being throttled, something BT denies.
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