The Net’s Most Wanteds

A common complaint among many mobile broadband users is the misleading mobile broadband speeds mentioned by providers while marketing their connections. This often leads to frustrating experiences as the marketed speed hardly ever lives up to the expectations, leaving the consumers frustrated.

Come September 1^st and the Swedish public will enjoy a more honest policy from their network providers. Sweden’s four key mobile broadband operators, namely TeliaSonera, Tele2, Telenor and 3, have come together and finalised a list of guidelines with set speeds for every technology.

Theoretically accurate figures of broadband speeds are often mentioned in the UK, along with an ‘up to’ prefix. However, the fact remains that these figures are only possible in theory and fail to hold true in reality. One buys mobile broadband connections which boasts of speeds like 3.6 Mbps, 7.2 Mbps and even as high as 14.4 Mbps, only to end up with a connection which works far below the given speeds, usually reaching 3 Mbps, 6 Mbps and 10 Mbps respectively. Click here for a snapshot of your broadband speed with this mobile broadband speed test.

The promise of an honest approach from the Swedish operators is a step in the right direction to making the experience of internet browsing using mobile broadband a less frustrating one.

UK providers need to follow in the footsteps of their Swedish counterparts, and set up a more transparent system to ensure consumers are not misled with false advertising of connection speeds.