Slashdot Mirror
The State of UK Broadband — Not So Fast
Barence writes "The deplorable speed of British broadband connections has been revealed in the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics, which show that 42.3% of broadband connections are slower than 2Mb/sec. More worryingly, the ONS statistics are based on the connection's headline speed, not actual throughput, which means that many more British broadband connections are effectively below the 2Mb/sec barrier. Better still, a separate report issued yesterday by Ofcom revealed that the majority of broadband users had no idea about the speed of their connection anyway."
Because during my download of Fedora 10, Virgin Media will throttle my connection from 8 to 2 ( mb/s ) and put my ping time ( to Google ) into the 2 second range.
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
Concerned as I am with slow speeds, I'm more concerned that I cannot at home get broadband at all because there's insufficient regulation of the monopoly landline supplier. BT is not interested in fixing the twisted pair arriving at my house such that ADSL will work. The UK government is not interested in extending the Universal Service Obligation - the thing that forces the monopoly to connect you to the phone system for voice calls - to broadband.
HMG's insistence that broadband is of economic and social importance is just so much humbug and cant if they will not bother themselves to lift a regulatory finger to ensure that the whole population can access at least a basic service.
Perish the thought that the vast additional profit arising out of millions of DSL connections should be put towards improving the basic infrastructure.
But I can get 2kbps downstream (yup, that's right) through my 2.5 or 3G connection. Yay. I think I was getting better than that on dialup in about 1995.
I'm supposed to have a 8MB connection. I've checked the distance to my DSLAM, and I'm well within the distance that 8M should be possible.
I've got a good modem/router - Alcatel Speedtouch - which lets me run diagnostics on the line. The diagnostics report that my signal to noise ratio is just within the limits to establish an aDSL session (from memory it's 9dB), and certainly nowhere close to being able to run at max speed (which would need a S/N of something like 50+dB).
I've contacted BT about the poor state of my line, and they basically ignore me. Actually, it's worse than that, they lied to me claiming that they have tried to contact me by phone, but I provided only my cell phone number and my e-mail, and there is no record of any missed calls from BT, just an e-mail claiming they tried to call. (not to mention that I always have it switched on and within easy ear-shot during working hours).
I guess they just suck !
I've contacted [any telco anywhere in the world] about the poor state of my line, and they basically ignore me.
There, fixed that for you.
Headline speed isn't everything.
"Unlimited" offers that are actually very limited, FUPs, throttling, packet shaping, off-peak, on-peak, web caching, port blocking, Phorm; - no wonder with all this crap the average customer is confused about their connection.
I will now shamelessly plug http://superawesomebroadband.com/ and get me coat.
Super Awesome Broadband
Maybe because at the moment there are very few applications of an Internet connection for which you'd notice the difference between 1mbit and 10mbit.
Unless you are a habitual downloader (a group statistically overrepresented here on Slashdot), you won't notice any difference to your web and email by moving above 1mbit. Hell, with the intelligent buffering that most video sites have, it's likely that you wouldn't even notice the difference on those sites unless you're really paying attention.
So cut it with the "we need faster broadband" BS. What we need before a 100mbit pipe is a legislative framework that ensures that consumers can actually use that 100mbit pipe without getting shagged six ways from Sunday by their ISP.
I'm looking at you, Telstra.
I hate printers.
bloody pommie whingers
(that's a term of endearment)
Bulldog is about the only broadband company in Britain who could have been improved by being bought by Tiscali. Now that they're not criminally overselling services they literally couldn't provision.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
How in God's name is the UK Government supposed to keep a record of everything you do online, if you are using these unholy fast speed internet connections ?
True - but then us corporate users who transfer sales & backup data between offices overnight *do* notice the problem.
Our new HQ is quite a long way from the exchange so we struggle to get above 4Mbit/sec anyway - but that's a side issue.
We have 30 satellite offices each running 1-8Mbit connections and we can get the data in overnight but if we wanted anything more 'real-time' we'd have to go fibre - and then we're talking something daft like a 10KGBP+ install to 'upgrade' to a whopping 10Mbit connection *PER SITE* - or get the connections cheaper in return for a long-term contract. Then, you'd need to factor in the monthly rental charges.
Overall, ADSL does what we need - slowly - but the price differential to the next possible speed solution is out of all proportion to the benefits.
AT&ROFLMAO
My bet is that these are closely related. If consumers knew about their comparatively low speed connection (i.e., knew enough to know they should care and how to figure it out) then they'd be pushing for faster speeds. They'd leave providers who are providing "slow broadband" and move to better ones, and the screwups would have to get right or get out of the broadband business.
But your average Peter Pint doesn't know enough to know better. (Hey, I'm not putting down you folks over the pond--the average Joe Sixpack thinks broadband is a woman's belt)
Just my two cents
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You could always look at bonding multiple ADSL connections together.
I am NaN
24Mbps, static IP address, 19 quid a month.
Sure, due to line quality I only get about 11-14Mbps, but that's ok.
They don't seem to throttle at all, torrenting stuff is nice and fast, as are my frequent OS downloads/net installs. No caps either AFAICT.
Well they might move to another provider, but still be in the same sinking boat.
Take my girlfriend's house as an example. They used to have BT DSL which topped out at a whopping 1.5mbps (on good days). They have since moved over to Tiscali for various reasons and see about the same speeds. Tiscali sells their particular package up to 8mbps, but they will likely never see speeds like that.
Apparently the problem is with the exchange, but may also be the last mile of copper, who knows? It's highly unlikely it will ever be fixed, so they just have to deal with it. It all works fine for them because they aren't power users (web, email, occasional iPlayer), but it would still be nice to get what you paid for. They could be paying for 24mbit but wouldn't likely see more than 2mbit. I'm sure her area isn't unique in the UK.
Or you can find a smaller provider who will sell a "slower" service for less money and possibly provide more ancillary services or better support etc.
Why pay for an up to 8mb service when your line can only handle 1.5Mb? go for a cheaper 2Mb service.
Also, Tiscali and BT consumer are two of the worst ISPs you could have picked, they are both mass market isps catering to the lowest common denominator. These ISPs will try to pack as many customers onto the smallest connection they can, safe in the knowledge that for every customer they lose there's 10 more who aren't clued up enough to notice. Tiscali for instance, may have 50 "up to 8mb" users connected to a single exchange, which has a 2mb backhaul connection...
Have a look at beunlimited (now o2) or some of the smaller but more highly rated isps on adslguide.org.uk, and avoid the big mass market ones like the plague, they are the mcdonalds of the isp world.
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