LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of Internet users are being short-changed by
broadband connections that are far slower than advertised, a watchdog said
on

The Consumer Panel, which advises communications regulator Ofcom, said there
was widespread discontent among computer users that broadband can be
frustratingly slow.
Full story at:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/200712...fa6b408_4.html
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Enzo wrote:

It's easy to fix.

Just use a good ISP.

Graham

"Enzo" <throwawayaccount0001@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:fkb1kv$3g7$1@news.albasani.net...
What we need is all these government depts (OFCOM, ASA, etc) to sing from
the same hymn sheet and remove the "upto" clause from advertising.

"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:47692F04.56B37A30@hotmail.com...
not for those of us some distance from the exchange 'up to' is still about
as honest as they can get, with an 'expected speed' given before signup.
watchdog /ofcom etc. should really be looking at 'unlimited' and poorly
explained shaping FUPs etc, which is where the dishonesty is, and ensuring
isps have the backhaul sufficient to service their clients

Getting a good ISP does enable us to make the best of the available
connection though, but without moving house i'm not going to get much better
than i have now until llu or 21cn arrive at my exchange (llu has arrived,
talktalk/cpw + aol, so i'll pass for now)

"ABC" <simonbray@nospamemail.afraid.org> wrote in message
news:fkbb4l$l2$1@nntp0.reith.bbc.co.uk...
and replace with what? if you live close to the exchange you may get about
8meg (7150 + overheads), if 5 miles away you may get 512k, both with the
same provider. ISPs should be forced to give reasonable expectation of
achievable speed before signup, which they can do once they have your phone
number, and should publish figures showing what % of subscribeers reach fit
which profile, but as front of house advetising goes, 'up to' is as honest
as saying 256k - 8meg. I do think the major isps are laughing at this debate
while they get away with throttling, capping and anything else their often
unpublished FUP will let them do, things that ofcom can do something
worthwhile about. the only isp which joined in with the gadget show was
fast4.net, whose pages give me no indication of speed i would expect except
"blisteringly fast Internet connection - up to 180 times faster than your
standard dial-up product!", so that will be 'up to' 8 meg then!

just a bit of searching, fast user comments
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/ce...ils&itemid=279

so the advertising on channel 4 will drag more lambs to the slaughter,
entirely missing the point that no matter how fast you connect, your isp can
still stuff you making the connection useless.

tony h <me@home.com> wrote:
: same provider. ISPs should be forced to give reasonable expectation of
: achievable speed before signup, which they can do once they have your phone
: number, and should publish figures showing what % of subscribeers reach fit
: which profile,

Would that help? Before ADSL Max BT said that, as I was too far from the
Exchange, I *might* get 1Mb and would *not* get 2Mb.

So I WAS told some facts then. The fact that I am getting >6Mb currently
with Sky's LLU service leads me to believe that ANY predictions will be
close to useless! Especially as internal extension wiring can have a major
effect on ADSL - I improved my speed a lot by looking at the results from
the test socket and then performing tricks like removing the "ring" wire
from my extensions - hardly a thing that any ISP/OFCOM could sensibly
suggest!

On 19/12/2007 15:06, tony h wrote:

You obviously realise talktalk=cpw, but it's not clear whether you
realise that aol=cpw too.

"Brian McIlwrath" <bkm@bkmpc.bnsc.rl.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:fkbfv1$2lr$1@south.jnrs.ja.net...
afaik sky's llu product is sold as 'up to 16meg' (adsl2) and uses different
equipment in the exchange to BTw products which the majority of isps sell,
so if BTw (or reseller) said you could expect 1 meg then that was most
likely correct staying with their equipment. a bit like going to a ford
dealership and being told that a car they sell can go at 120mph, then going
to ferrari and getting a different type of car going 200mph and calling ford
liars, different products, different speeds.
there are always ways for those with a bit of nouse to improve their
speed/stability on any product, but for the majority a 'you should get x
meg' from samknows or similar should be reasonably accurate.

tony h <me@home.com> wrote:

: afaik sky's llu product is sold as 'up to 16meg' (adsl2) and uses different
: equipment in the exchange to BTw products which the majority of isps sell,

No! I should have said that I am now on Sky's "Mid" product - which is also
"up to 8Mb" (but on their own equipment). My downstream attenuation
(46dB) is, I am led to believe, too high for the 16meg ADSL2 "Max" product.

Previously I was on BT ADSLMax with "Sky Connect" (until they installed LLU).
That was the one I increased to ~4.5Mb (from ~3) by working on the house
wiring.

On 19/12/2007 14:51, ABC wrote:

Why? What we really need is for people to read and understand the
description of what they are buying.

If someone bought a car that claimed to have a top speed of 150mph,
would they have a valid cause to complain if it couldn't achieve that
speed up a 1:4 hill with 10 sacks of cement in the boot?

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:51:00 UTC, "ABC"
<simonbray@nospamemail.afraid.org> wrote:

What exactly do you propose that they *should* say?

--
[ 7'ism - a condition by which the sufferer experiences an inability
to give concise answers, express reasoned argument or opinion.
Usually accompanied by silly noises and gestures - incurable, early
euthanasia recommended. ]

"Bob Eager" <rde42@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:176uZD2KcidF-pn2-QY2ljkeDfWp9@rikki.tavi.co.uk...
"depending on how much debt we're in"
"based on an un-oversubscribed network"

"tony h" <me@home.com> wrote in message
news:fkbht7$dos$1@news.albasani.net...
CPW bought AOL around 18 months ago. I can't be arsed to look it up either
.... CPW and AOL are mde for one another.

Ofcom, parto fthe goverment right? Dont give them your details they
might loose them. Then broadband would really need regulating.

On 19-Dec-2007, "Bob Eager" <rde42@spamcop.net> wrote:

ISP's will set up speed tests, which being in their network, will be
as fast as the subscribers line supports. That's the speed they will
quote, and can demonstrate. It will also comply with the Trades
Descriptions Act.

They can have a piece of wet string speed to the outside world,
so access to stuff beyond your ISP's domain will be "wet piece
of string speed" which is what many of us are suffering.

It's the bean counters fault.
"If we spend money on advertising, it brings in customers and
revenue" and our T&C lock them in for a tewlvemonth.
Spending money on infrastructure and adequate backhaul
bandwidth costs us money, it hits our bottom line.
The bean counters argument wins hands down.

For a decent service we need fibre to the kerb, but BT buried
its head in the sand. With fibre, and its monopoly on ducts,
it could have been the only game in town. Of course it was
in the days of Ian Vallance that the critical decisions should
have been made. By now with a rolling program of fibre the
cost would have amortised itself, not to mention the returns
from selling off a lot of surplus redundent copper, most of
which is pre and immediate post-war, with a long lay of
twist, which is restricting the attainable spped.

Testing fibre circuits is also less labour intensive than
testing thousands of individual circuits when faults are
reported, the multiplexer at the kerb sends back it's
error rate, status and statistics, over its management
channel.
So in most cases all that OpenReach would need to
check would be the short connection from the cab to
the customer.

For the customer, phone calls would be clearer, and BT
could have been a serious competitor to Virgin and Sky for
multimedia distribution.

How is it that BT came to be led by a complete lot
of obscenely paid dipsticks?

I'm not surprised the government of the day broke
their monopoly and set up Ofcom, whose attempts
to kick them up the a*** isn't likely to achieve much.

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:37:55 UTC, ato_zee@hotmail.com wrote:

No, I didn't. Please try and get your quoting right.


--
[ 7'ism - a condition by which the sufferer experiences an inability
to give concise answers, express reasoned argument or opinion.
Usually accompanied by silly noises and gestures - incurable, early
euthanasia recommended. ]

ABC wrote:

You reckon that Gov't depts can change the laws of physics do you ?

Graham

tony h wrote:

It seems you replied to the wrong post.

I see no reason why distance from the exchange limits your choice of ISP.

Graham

tony h wrote:

How do you think LLU will help you ?

Graham