Not getting the speed you pay for? Your minimum guaranteed speed, and how to leave

“I’m not getting what I pay for” is one of the most common things people say about their broadband, and one of the least useful, because the number on the advert was never a promise. There is a number that is a promise, though. It is called the minimum guaranteed download speed, it was given to you when you bought the service, and it is the number the exit rules turn on.

This page is about that number: where to find it, what has to happen before it lets you leave, and the several ways the process quietly goes wrong.

What the minimum guaranteed speed actually is

Ofcom runs a voluntary Broadband Speeds Code of Practice. Providers who sign it commit to giving you realistic speed information when you buy, and to a right to exit the contract without penalty if your download speed ends up below the minimum they quoted and they cannot fix it.

It is not the advertised speed and it is not the estimated range. It is a separate, lower figure, worked out differently depending on what your line is:

Your connection	How the minimum guaranteed download speed is set
ADSL, FTTC, G.fast — anything where distance from the cabinet or exchange matters	The 10th percentile of the provider’s similar customers on the same package, adjusted for the impact of congestion at peak time
Cable and full fibre (FTTP), where line length does not affect speed	At least 50% of the advertised speed for the package
Fixed wireless, including satellite	Covered by the same code, but the code does not say which basis applies — it names only cable and FTTP for the 50% rule, and allows its principles to be applied differently by technology. Check the figure your provider gave you

Two things follow from that table. On full fibre, the minimum is a blunt fraction: on an advertised 500 Mbps package it cannot be lower than 250 Mbps. On a copper line it is a percentile — the speed only the slowest tenth of comparable customers fall below — which is why it can look surprisingly low, and why falling below it is a genuine signal that something is wrong rather than a bad day.

A provider may choose to offer a higher minimum than the code requires. It may not offer a lower one.

Peak time has a fixed definition here: 8pm to 10pm, every day. The minimum guaranteed speed already has that congestion built into it, which is exactly why a peak-time test is the one that matters.

Where to find yours

Signatories have to put the detail in writing. Within 7 calendar days of the sale, in a written, durable format you can go back to later — normally a starter pack by post or email, or something added to your online account.

Look for the phrase minimum guaranteed download speed, or whatever your provider calls it. Providers are allowed to use their own wording, but the code requires that wording to make clear that this is the speed below which you can exit without penalty, and requires it not to imply the speed will definitely be achieved.

If you genuinely cannot find a number, that is worth knowing in itself: either you were not given one, which is a failure of the code, or your provider is not a signatory.

So what actually triggers the right to leave?

Two conditions, both of which have to be met. The right applies at any point during the contract.

1. Your actual download speed falls below the minimum guaranteed download speed on a daily basis for at least three successive days — continuously or intermittently, either counts — after you have reported a speed problem; and
2. the problem has not been resolved within a maximum of 30 calendar days since you reported it.

Read the order of that carefully, because it is where most people lose weeks. The three days run after the report, not before. Six months of dismal speeds you never mentioned to anyone start no clock at all. The first thing to do about a slow line is report it, and to report it explicitly as a speed problem.

The 30 days is a maximum, not a minimum. A provider can offer the exit earlier if it has taken all reasonable steps and the speed is still below the minimum.

Wi-Fi does not count, and that catches almost everyone

The code measures the speed at the router. Its own footnote is unambiguous: providers “are not responsible for in-premises factors, such as the effects of using WiFi or older devices”.

So a speed test run on a phone in an upstairs bedroom, however grim the result, proves nothing about your line. Plug a computer into the router with an Ethernet cable and test there. If the wired figure is fine and the Wi-Fi figure is not, your problem is real but it is a different problem — start with our wired vs Wi-Fi test and the fix slow Wi-Fi diagnostic instead.

This is not a technicality your provider invented. It is the boundary the whole right is drawn around.

Download only — not upload, not ping

This surprises people who work from home, and it is worth being exact about.

The code requires providers to tell you a minimum upload speed too, worked out the same way. But it states plainly that the minimum upload speed “is not guaranteed, i.e. it does not give rise to a right to exit the contract under Principle 5”.

And the words latency, jitter and packet loss do not appear in the residential code at all. A connection whose download speed is fine but whose video calls fall apart is a real and common problem — it simply is not this one. Our guide to a fast speed test and a slow connection covers that case properly.

Do I need a speed test first?

No. The code says the customer does not need to provide a speed test result to report a concern about their speed.

But it says something more useful in the next breath: where a customer does provide speed-checking test information, it must be treated as a serious and credible indication of a potential speed problem. That sentence is worth knowing by heart the next time someone tells you your test does not count.

So run the tests anyway, over a cable, at different times of day including the 8–10pm window, and keep them dated. Our broadband speed checker gives you the figure and what it means; the discipline that matters is testing the same way each time and writing down what you got.

How to actually do it, in order

The schema and the sequence both matter here, because doing these in the wrong order is how people lose a month.

1. Find your minimum guaranteed download speed in the paperwork from when you bought or renewed — the starter pack, the order confirmation, or your online account. It is a single number, and it is lower than the advertised speed.
2. Test over a cable, not over Wi-Fi. Plug a computer straight into the router with Ethernet. The right is measured at the router, so a Wi-Fi result proves nothing about the line.
3. Test at peak time as well as off-peak — 8pm to 10pm, which is the window the minimum guaranteed speed already accounts for.
4. Report it as a speed problem, and note the date. This is what starts the thirty days. You do not need a test result to report it, but supplying one makes the report harder to wave away.
5. Keep testing daily while they investigate. The trigger is three successive days below the minimum after you reported it, continuously or intermittently. Record date, time and result, over a cable, every day.
6. Let them try to fix it. Do not cancel engineer visits — that lets them extend the deadline, and repeatedly missing appointments can stop the process altogether.
7. Wait for the formal offer at thirty days. If it comes on the phone, get it in writing; they have to confirm your acceptance in a durable format anyway.
8. Decide what to do with the rest of the bundle, and remember you are under no obligation to take a discount or an upgrade instead of leaving.

What “without penalty” actually covers

More than most people expect.

• No charges for leaving, including early termination fees.
• A pro-rata refund of outstanding fees paid up front — the code gives advance line rental as its example.
• No charge for engineer visits needed to fix the speed problem as part of the process. The exception is fair: if you miss an agreed appointment or cancel on the day, or the engineer establishes the cause was within your reasonable control, the provider may pass on reasonable costs.
• Equipment can be requested back, and you can be charged a reasonable amount reflecting its depreciated value if you keep it — but the provider cannot make you pay the delivery cost of returning it. If you paid an upfront charge for the equipment it has to reimburse you when it asks for it back, though it may withhold a reasonable amount for the depreciation in its value over the time you used it. On an old hub that can come to very little.

You also get time to think. A provider may set a deadline for accepting the exit offer, but it must be no less than 30 calendar days, and it must not make acceptance awkward enough to put you off — the code specifically rules out methods that cost you money or significant effort, giving a reply by post that you have to pay for as the example.

Can I take the TV and the phone with me?

Usually, yes — and you choose how much of it goes.

Where your broadband sits in a bundle, the right to exit lets you terminate the broadband on its own, or the contracts linked to it as well. Given the choice you can exit the whole bundle, keep the whole bundle, or exit the broadband and the parts that depend on it while keeping the parts that do not — a mobile contract from the same provider being the obvious example, where they already sell it separately.

One limit: if you have more than one broadband line at the same address, the right applies only to the line with the speed problem and the services bundled with that line.

What can slow the 30 days down

The code lets a provider extend the deadline in specific circumstances, and it is worth knowing which, because two of them are things you control.

• You cancel engineer visits, or you cannot take steps for diagnosis at the time you report the problem — for instance you reported it while away from the property. The provider may extend the deadline by a reasonable period.
• You repeatedly miss appointments, or otherwise do not take reasonable steps the provider asks for, to the point that diagnosis cannot continue. Here the provider may stop the right-to-exit process altogether — though it must tell you it has done so, and explain why.
• Exceptional circumstances beyond the provider’s control that make the problem technically impossible to resolve in time. The code names a missed or delayed Openreach appointment and the need to obtain street-works permissions.

In the first two cases the provider must explain the delay and keep you informed of any change to the deadline. In the last case it must also say how long the extension is expected to be, and make clear you can still leave immediately and without penalty at that point.

When your provider disagrees about your speed

It is allowed to, but not casually. A provider can only dispute whether your speed is below the minimum if it verifies the speed using line-specific testing that accounts for the effect of congestion and other degrading factors on that specific line — its own performance checker, or Ofcom’s. And the code says that process must not unduly delay diagnosis of the fault.

There is a shortcut in your favour, too. If the access line speed — the sync speed at which your router negotiates with the exchange equipment — is already below the minimum guaranteed speed, the provider “does not necessarily need to carry out further testing”, because your received speed could not be above that level. The reverse is not true: an access line speed above the minimum does not prove your actual speed is, because congestion sits between the two.

Once the problem is identified as a network issue, the provider must tell you your minimum guaranteed download speed and explain that if it cannot be resolved within 30 calendar days you have a right to exit. If nobody has said that to you, say it to them.

Does my provider even sign up to this?

The code is voluntary, so this matters more than it sounds. Ofcom publishes the list, under the heading “Who has you covered?”:

BT · EE · NOW Broadband · Plusnet · Sky · TalkTalk · Utility Warehouse · Virgin Media · Zen Internet

Nine providers. Vodafone is not among them, and neither is any altnet. Elsewhere Ofcom hedges this as “most providers have signed up” — worth respecting rather than rounding up, and worth noting that the page carrying the list is dated 21 November 2022 and shows no later revision, so treat it as the starting point rather than the last word.

The second check is your own paperwork: a signatory had to give you a minimum guaranteed download speed in writing. Providers publish their own pages too — TalkTalk states outright that it “is a signatory to Ofcom’s voluntary Broadband Speed Code of Conduct”, and BT and Plusnet publish equivalents. Note the naming drift: the same scheme appears as a Code of Practice, a Code of Conduct and a speed guarantee depending on whose site you are on. Search your provider’s help pages for “minimum guaranteed” rather than for the code’s name.

If your provider is not a signatory, none of the above is available to you. What is left is the ordinary route: a formal complaint, and then the ombudsman that covers your provider.

What this right does not do

It does not get you a refund for the months you spent on a slow line. It does not oblige your provider to make the line faster. It does not apply to business products, which have a separate code.

And it is not for rolling monthly contracts. Ofcom is explicit: “if you are on a rolling monthly contract, this process doesn’t apply to you – but you can give notice (usually a month) to leave your contract anyway.” Which is rather the point — out of contract you do not need a right to exit, because you can simply leave.

Nor is it a lever for a better deal — providers are allowed to offer a discount or an upgrade alongside the exit, and the code is clear that you are under no obligation to accept those instead, but equally the exit is the remedy on offer, not compensation.

If what you actually want is a lower bill rather than a way out, that is a different conversation and a better-tempered one: start with how to lower your broadband bill.

Related

• What speed should I be getting? — what is normal for your connection type, before you decide something is wrong.
• How to do an accurate broadband speed test — testing the way that stands up.
• Which ombudsman handles my provider? — if the provider will not engage at all.

→ Use the broadband speed checker