Comments on: Broadband Speed Tests & the BBC

By: Neil.Hy

Neil.Hy — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:54:16 +0000

Bunny Bunyer - At school I was always taught that a comma should precede and follow quoted speech marks and brackets so does that mean that your comment isn't 100% correct as well? Stones and glass houses spring to mind!!

Anyway, back to the subject in hand. It comes to something when you can't even watch the video, (http://www.plus.net/support/videohelp/dslmaxv4.wmv), due to buffering and line speed issues!

In this day and age should we not expect a better infrastructure than we have? In the last few days my speed has ranged from 240kbps to 992kbps. So much for 'Upto 8Mb'.

By: Bunny Bunyer

Bunny Bunyer — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 09:51:07 +0000

One who writes that "we can always do more as an ISP" could begin by using a spelling checker, so that we would not be insulted with "sacrafice" (for sacrifice) and "inherantly" (for inherently).

By: Dick Cowen

Dick Cowen — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:35:26 +0000

I can see a scenario where a potential customer compares Plusnet's honest up to 8Mb offering with a competitor's 8Mb offering, takes the competitor, receives poor speed and service but sticks with it believing all ISPs are the same.

By: John Salkeld

John Salkeld — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:28:41 +0000

I took the BBC speed test yesterday and the result was 1.4Mb immediately afterwards I took the test on the PlusNet speed tester and it registered 2.856Mb - that's some discrepancy.

By: johpal

johpal — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:06:11 +0000

A retrograde step, perhaps, but ought we to have more exchanges, so that the average line length is reduced? (Only one factor, I agree, but is this what the reporting really is about?)

By: Gswindale

Gswindale — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:09:55 +0000

The whole issue is that anybody providing an "up-to" service is likely to be accused of misleading at some point.

Like Ian, I can't see any easy way around this, until fixed rate connections become the norm (such as given by cable providers).

By: Ian Wild

Ian Wild — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:47:28 +0000

The problem is that consumers find "up to 8Mb" inherently misleading.

There isn't an easier way to sell it that I can see, but the reality is that as a consumer I shouldn't need to care about my line quality or how far I am from the exchange.

The whole industry has to take responsibility for consumers feeling mislead. We can always do more as an ISP, even if we can't sacrifice sign-ups to competitiors simply because we are being more honest in the first place. I really hope the upcoming ofcom guidance on this subject will help consumers at least make more informed choices.

Ian

By: Peter Stone

Peter Stone — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:45:28 +0000

I did the BBC test today and it said 3.1M I immediately did the BT test and MYBroadband test with the following, Whoes kidding who?
3 june
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 6500 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 8096 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 5835 kbps

Date Download Speed Upload Speed
Today 13:50 6174 kbps (772kB/s) 382 kbps (47.8kB/s)

By: Kelly Dorset

Kelly Dorset — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:43:07 +0000

What doesn't help is ill-informed reporting. This was talked about on BBC breakfast TV and the presenter talked about how he'd signed up for 8Mb, and was only getting about half, so lots of his `megs` were getting lost somewhere.

It was tongue in cheek, but what was clear was that he'd signed up for a product believing he was going to get 8Mb. The reality is that his product is `up to 8Mb`...