Broadband Guide Blog

Broadband not up to speed

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:17:05 BST

Despite the fact that consumers are paying up to £30 per month for their broadband, a service that has recently been described as an everyday essential, a recent report by Ofcom has suggested that customers are reportedly receiving less than half of the speed they are paying for.

Discussing the report's findings, Ofcom chief executive, Ed Richards, argued that “it's very easy to go out and find out what the price of broadband is, but much more difficult to get a good understanding of what the observed speeds are likely to be”, which suggests that broadband providers are taking advantage of customer naivety.

One of the main reasons for this naivety is that, at present, customers are offered broadband services that promise speeds ‘up to’ those advertised. With broadband services affected by a range of factors, including how far customers live from the local telephone exchange, the extent of consumers' downloading, as well as the time that the customer is using the internet, it is little wonder that actual speeds differ so much.

Despite the report painting several major broadband suppliers in a negative light, the report did suggest that Virgin Media currently provide the fastest service to consumers, although BT, who ranked lower in Ofcom’s report, have challenged the validity of the report, suggesting that (amongst other things) the sample size of respondents was too small.

One of the few positives to come out of the report for consumers was the news that overall broadband speeds are increasing, with consumers having seen speeds in May 2010 increased to 5.2 Mbit/s, up from 4.1 megabits per second (Mbit/s) in April 2009.

3 voted best mobile broadband provider in the UK

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:32:26 BST

A recent survey by YouGov, the research and marketing group, has revealed that consumers deem 3Mobile to be the best mobile broadband provider in the UK.

Despite already undertaking an expansion that has seen 3Mobile extend its network from 7,500 sites at the end of 2008 to more than 11,400 (a figure that is likely to rise to 12,500 by the end of the year), 3Mobile has further enhanced its UK coverage, proving that the provider has not been neglecting its existing customers.

After asking more than 2,000 mobile broadband consumers to rank mobile broadband providers in 12 categories, 3Mobile outperformed Vodafone, Orange, O2, and T-Mobile to finish top in 10 out of 12 service quality categories, and was rated as best for billing, customer reliability and quality of service.

Those surveyed pinpointed the fact that 3Mobile offers the fastest download speeds, the most reliable network and the best customer service, and it appears that customer satisfaction of those using 3Mobile as their mobile broadband provider is reaching levels the company can truly be proud of.

This view also seems to be held by the network itself, with Joe Parker, Director at 3Mobile Broadband, suggesting the result was a “customer endorsement of the massive investment we have put into our network over the past two years, and the speed at which this programme is developing. The network continues to grow in reach, speed and capacity.”

With 3Mobile’s current share of the UK’s mobile broadband market sitting at 35%, Mr Parker and 3Mobile Broadband will be hoping that widespread reporting of this news sees their share of the market increase even further.

UK government delays 'Broadband Britain' until 2015

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:33:21 BST

As the UK coalition government continues to look to make spending cuts, it has been announced that the previous government’s commitment to provide a universal 2mbps broadband connection has been deferred from 2012 to 2015.

Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, made the announcement at an event organised to help identify solutions to Britain's broadband coverage problems. Mr Hunt announced to a gathering of telecoms operators that the current government have set themselves "a more realistic target of achieving universal 2Mbps access within the lifetime of this parliament”.

The announcement drew stinging criticism from Sebastien Lahtinen of telecoms site Thinkbroadband.com, who described Hunt's move as a “significant setback for rural broadband users”. Current estimates suggest that almost 160,000 rural and remote households still have no access to a broadband speed internet connection, despite broadband services being launched 10 years ago.

Although recent figures suggest that approximately 99 per cent of the UK has access to broadband at a speed of at least 512kbps, the 2mbps connection speed target would have provided all users with access to next-generation services, such as BBC iPlayer.

The underlying impression given by the culture secretary is a move away from government targets and a step towards encouraging the private sector to offer faster speeds as well as a desire to help communities set up their own services. This can be highlighted effectively by Mr Hunt’s insistence that the UK would be able to achieve universal broadband speeds of 2mbps and faster if companies put down cables whilst other utilities such as sewers and roads are being excavated.

Users frustrated by mobile broadband

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:38:29 BST

Mobile broadband has revolutionised the broadband market in a very short space of time. Now the internet is truly mobile, with laptops being able to access the internet through a dongle wherever there is a mobile signal, and with a slew of new smartphones that can do all the same things that a computer is capable of doing.

But now it’s been revealed that consumers are not particularly happy with the mobile broadband service that they are receiving.

The news comes following YouGov research on behalf of Acision, and shows that many mobile-broadband users are actually quite disappointed by the quality that they are receiving through their dongles.

The results of the research show that, of the total respondents:

67% suffer from slow download speeds
49% are concerned by their network coverage
40% report problems with a loss of connection
84% are unhappy with the slow connection speeds

The head of consumer, technology and telecoms consulting at YouGov, Marek Vaygelt, said that many users are “suffering regular and significant problems with their mobile broadband”.

The truth is that, even though it is ubiquitous, the technology is still in its infancy. Mobile broadband came practically out of nowhere and suddenly everyone is using it, which is sure to lead to some teething problems.

There are a lot of improvements that mobile broadband service providers can introduce in the near future to make surfing on the mobile web a lot more enjoyable and less frustrating than it currently is.

Results like those from this YouGov research will hopefully give mobile broadband providers the drive that they need to do something about their service and improve it soon.

BT to cover most of London with fibre by 2011

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:41:48 BST

There was good news for broadband users in London recently as BT announced that it will be rolling out its super-fast broadband service to nearly the whole of London in 2011.

BT’s original plan was to cover 40% of homes with high-speed broadband by 2013, so the new plans are much more ambitious in scope and really show just how important it is for BT to provide faster broadband to the country.

BT will invest over £2.5 billion in order to upgrade its current infrastructure. When the rollout is complete, two million homes and businesses (or 87% of the population of London) will have access to high-speed fibre-optic broadband with speeds of up to 100Mbps available.

And BT is not waiting around: 100,000 homes already have access to high-speed broadband, and the rollout is going to be rapid. BT has confirmed that it wants to offer the service to two thirds of the UK by 2015, which is great news for anyone living outside the capital.

The news means that the battle continues to heat up between BT and Virgin Media. Virgin currently provides a high-speed service up to 50Mbps, and BT is keen to dominate the market in London as this would stand it in good stead to expand around the country.

But although no one is in any doubt about the importance of high-speed broadband for the UK economy, will there be huge demand for the service at first? It really depends on what people are willing to pay, and how much BT will charge, which is yet to be disclosed.

Lower fines for cutting broadband contracts

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:32:39 BST

There are lots of broadband deals available on the market, with new ones coming out all the time. But if you want to switch to a deal that is much better value then you may be put off from doing so because of the fees involved in cancelling your contract.

But now things are about to get a lot better for customers after Ofcom announced that it had come to an agreement with the three biggest landline customers that they would start to introduce lower charges for cancellations.

Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk have all agreed to cut their cancellation fees for a number of their landline packages, as well as landline and broadband bundles.

TalkTalk introduced its new charges on June 1, and will be offering the same cuts to its Tiscali users from November 1. Virgin and BT will both cut their fees from October 2010.

Ofcom stated that the companies did not think that their charges were unfair, but that they agreed to reduce them for their customers.

Companies want to recoup their losses when customers cancel a contract, and so have made the fees very high as a result. But the new cuts are quite substantial.

For example, the TalkTalk Essential phone and broadband bundle cancellation fee has gone down from £33.48 per month to £8. And the Virgin Media phone and broadband bundle has gone down from £29.99 a month to £6.63 for the first month and £4.63 for the remaining months.

It is thought that more companies will follow suit in the future as they could face action from Ofcom if they do not.