We suffered the same thing, coinciding with the installation of the new cabinets and main cables throughout our village.
We used to typically get 0.6MB download, now down to 0.2MB and barely navigable in the graphic-intense software environment of the current internet.
I've spoken to Orange and BT about this and each refer me to the other for the cause and resolution. Of course, the new cabinets and the slower speeds also coincided with the marketeering of the new BB packages (with higher prices). I quizzed one BT salesman about what speeds we would typically be getting under their proposed package (of up to 16MB) and I was given the runaround with the same old excuses of 'you
could get up to 16MB per second'. When I asked what we would get on average, based on our current connection, he mumbled around 'distance from exchange' until he finally admitted that we would only a maximum of 2MB.
I've also quizzed the engineers, who were installling the cabinets, about the sudden reduction in speed and they reacted much in the same way as those dodgy car mechanics who don't want to explain why they're charging you for work not done/needed, and dismissed it as 'it depends on how far away you are from the cabinet', as they quickly walked away.
Yesterday, I looked into BT's and EE's current packages for ASDL broadband and neither will be able to offer the speeds they're selling; in fact, based upon a 2MB connection (which seems to be the limit for a lot of people), the leeway within the smallprint ('may be between 1.5 and 2MB higher or lower than your estimated speed') shows that they're trying to tempt people into buying packages that will not be delivered, and that based on a current 2MB connection, you're not likely to get above 0.5MB based on their current delivery.
To be honest, I think the speeds were purposely lowered to encourage customers to buy costlier packages that they'll never receive.
So, my suggestion is that we're being scammed - as simple as that.
Edited by deleted (Fri 16-Nov-12 05:35:25)