Broadband speed guarantee: what it actually promises

The broadband speed guarantee is the promise most people half remember and almost nobody can produce when they need it. It is not a promise that you will get the speed on the advert. It is a specific figure, calculated for your line and handed to you when you signed up, and it comes with a way out of the contract if your connection drops below it and stays there. Knowing what that figure is, and what has to happen before the way out opens, is the difference between a phone call that goes somewhere and one that goes in circles.

What is the broadband speed guarantee?

It is a minimum guaranteed download speed for your particular line, quoted to you at the point of sale rather than after something goes wrong. If your speed falls below it and your provider cannot put it right within 30 days of you reporting the problem, you can leave the contract without paying an early exit fee. That right extends to anything sold to you in the same bundle, so a home phone or a television package bought alongside the broadband comes with you.

The rule sits in Ofcom's codes of practice on broadband speeds, which were strengthened in 2022 to make the exit right clearer and to close the gap where a customer could escape the broadband but stay tied to everything sold with it. Ofcom's statement on the right to exit sets out what changed and why.

It is a voluntary code, not a law

This is the part worth knowing before you rely on it. The speeds codes are voluntary. Providers choose to sign up, and the protection is only owed to you by one that has. Most of the household-name providers have signed, and a good number of smaller networks follow the same practice, but signing is a decision each company makes rather than a duty every company carries.

So the first question is not what your speed is doing. It is whether your provider is a signatory, which is a fair thing to ask before you buy and an awkward thing to discover afterwards. ThinkBroadband's guide to the code is a plain summary of what a signatory takes on. If you are weighing up a provider you had never heard of until it appeared on your street, this belongs on the same list as price and contract length rather than below it.

Where to find your guaranteed minimum speed

It was given to you, which surprises people who have never gone looking for it. Signatories have to quote it before you commit and confirm it in writing afterwards, so it will be in one of a small number of places:

• The contract information you were sent. Usually a short summary document that arrives with or just after the order confirmation.
• The order confirmation email itself. Often further down than anyone reads, under a heading about speeds rather than one about your rights.
• Your online account. Some providers keep the figure with your package details, some do not show it at all once you are past sign-up.
• By asking. The shortest route. Ask what the minimum guaranteed download speed on your line was at the point of sale, and ask for it in writing.

Expect it to be well below the number that sold you the package. That is not a trick. The headline figure describes the package in good conditions and the guaranteed minimum describes the floor your provider will stand behind on your line, and the second one is the one with teeth.

How do you prove your speed is below it?

With repeated wired tests, recorded with dates and times, rather than one bad afternoon on a laptop upstairs. A provider will check its own end first, and a single screenshot taken over wifi from the far side of the house is the easiest thing in the world for it to set aside.

Plug a computer straight into the router with a cable if you possibly can. Test at several points across a few days, including the busy evening hours, and keep every result. Wifi is shared, and it weakens with distance, walls and interference, so a wireless test measures your house rather than your line. Our guide to telling a wifi problem from a line problem works through how to separate the two before you pick up the phone.

The 30 days, and how the clock starts

The window runs from when you report the problem, and it is 30 calendar days rather than working days. Nothing happens while you put up with it quietly, which is the single most common way people lose months of this protection. Report it properly, ask for a fault or complaint reference, and write down the date you were given it.

Inside that window the provider is entitled to try. It may send an engineer, change a setting on the line, replace a router or ask you to test again. That is the process working rather than the process stalling. What matters is where the speed stands at the end of it. If the connection is still below your guaranteed minimum and the problem has not been resolved, the exit right opens and the early exit charge you would normally face does not apply.

What the guarantee does not give you

Here is the honest limit. The code gives you a way out. It does not give you money back. There is no automatic refund for the months you spent below the guaranteed figure, and a provider that fixes the problem on day 29 has done what the code asks of it, however tiring the month was. Anything you get beyond release from the contract is a goodwill decision rather than an entitlement.

Three other gaps are worth stating plainly. The guarantee is a download figure, so a poor upload speed is a different conversation and the upload side of your connection explains why. It describes the line rather than the wifi, so a slow laptop in a back bedroom is your problem to solve. And it measures against your own guaranteed minimum rather than the advertised speed, so a connection running at half the number on the advert may still be comfortably above the figure that counts.

If your provider will not accept it

Disagreements here are usually about evidence rather than principle: whether the speed really was below the minimum, and whether 30 days really have passed since you reported it. That is why the boring record keeping matters more than the argument. Dates, reference numbers, wired test results.

If you get nowhere, the complaint escalates past the provider to an independent dispute scheme. It costs you nothing to use. Getting a complaint taken seriously sets out that route and what has to happen first. And if the answer turns out to be that you are free to leave, the useful next step is knowing what else reaches your address, which our availability checker will show you street by street.

Frequently asked questions

What is a minimum guaranteed speed?

It is a download figure worked out for your specific line and quoted to you before you buy, rather than the headline speed on the advert. The advertised number describes what the package can do in good conditions. The guaranteed minimum is the floor your provider is willing to be held to on your line, which is why it is usually a good deal lower and why it is the number that matters if things go wrong.

How long does my provider get to fix a slow connection?

Thirty calendar days from the point you report it, not thirty working days. If the speed is still below your guaranteed minimum at the end of that window and the provider has not resolved it, the exit right opens. The clock only starts when you tell them, so a year of quietly putting up with it counts for nothing. Report it, get a reference number, and note the date.

Does the speed guarantee cover my upload speed?

No. The figure you were given at sign-up is a download speed, so a connection whose download holds up while the upload struggles has not fallen below its guarantee. That does not leave you with nothing, but the route is the ordinary fault process rather than the exit right, and it is slower.

Can I leave the phone or TV package as well?

Yes, where they were sold to you as part of the same bundle. The exit right was written to cover linked services precisely so that nobody ends up free to cancel the broadband while still tied to the television package they only bought because it came with it.

What if my provider has not signed up to the code?

Then the code cannot be used against them, because it is voluntary rather than law. What still applies is the contract itself, which usually carries its own service commitments, and the ordinary complaints route through your provider and then an independent dispute scheme. It is worth asking a provider whether it has signed up before you buy rather than after.