AN UNHAPPY Rosyth web-surfer has slammed BT and claimed he was “fleeced” into taking out another internet contract with promises of faster broadband – which he is still waiting for.

High local demand for fibre optic connection has meant that Martin Thurston (41), of Park Lea, has to wait for more instalments – despite claiming he was told that he would receive it earlier this year.

He said, “I have been with BT for over five years and I have noticed a huge drop in the speed of the internet.

“I was told before taking out another contract that we would be getting faster fibre optic internet in February/March but I am still waiting on it.

“Web pages take a very long time to load – I use the internet for my business and for personal and it can be a struggle.

“I am paying £25 a month for the internet – I only took out the other contract because I thought it would be faster by now. I feel like I have been fleeced.

“They keep moving the goalposts for when we are to get this faster internet.” Mr Thurston claims that he is receiving just 4.3Mbit/s fixed-line residential speed – a speed around the same as the UK average in 2009. Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries, highlights on their website that in November 2013 the average actual fixed-line residential broadband speed in the UK was 17.8Mbit/s.

Mr Thurston continued, “We are sharing our broadband with Inverkeithing and it is just getting slower and slower. We have many businesses in Rosyth and a lot of money coming into the area – I just don’t understand why we wouldn’t have faster internet.

“There has been a fibre optic box here since January or February with a sticker saying ‘fibre optic coming to the area soon’ on it – it has been months and I still don’t have it.” A spokesperson for BT told the Press that dates for installations for fibre optic connections were always subject to change.

The spokesperson continued, “The first fibre cabinets in Inverkeithing exchange area, which also covers most of Rosyth, went live in April 2012. BT’s commercial roll-out of fibre broadband in the area now passes around 8300 homes or around 87 per cent of premises. ‘Fibre to the cabinet’ technology is delivered through new fibre street cabinets.

“The phone line in question is connected to a fibre-enabled cabinet but we have not been able to provide a service because local demand has been such that this particular cabinet is currently full. We are installing further fibre capacity and this work is currently scheduled to be completed later this month. For various commercial and technological reasons, not every line in any given exchange area is able to get fibre. The Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband initiative has been launched to extend fibre broadband in places which are not covered by any commercial fibre upgrades by Openreach or any other network operator.”