O2 denies capping broadband speeds

January 29, 2017

Broadband provider O2 has denied throttling bandwidth on customer connections.

News site ‘The Register’ suggested this week that O2 and Be have deployed speed-capping equipment to stop subscribers playing bandwidth-hungry online games.

O2 denied the allegation, and instead blamed the slow speeds on the success of its network.

“We do not throttle speeds on our network,” an O2 spokesperson said.

Increased traffic is a plausible explanation: in the last three months, O2 and Be signed up 62,800 new customers at a time when other successful providers, including Tiscali and Orange, saw subscriber numbers fall.

The spokesperson added that congested areas are being monitored and that capacity will be increased if the problem persists.

“We are aware that some parts of our network are experiencing congestion at peak times,” she said.

“We are monitoring this closely and are investing heavily to increase the capacity in these areas.”

In an O2 user forum poll, 88% of respondents said they had noticed ‘dramatic’ slowdown in the evening.

There are 60 pages of user complaints about slow connection speeds on the forum.