Tuesday, July 26, 2011

ISPs still 'mislead' on broadband

Broadband speeds in the UK now average 6.8Mbps (megabits per second) but there is still a huge gap between advertised and actual speeds, according to Ofcom.

Almost half of broadband users are now on packages with advertised speeds above 10Mbps but few achieve this.

Ofcom's biannual report into the state of the broadband market urged changes to advertising.

Virgin Media accused rivals of misleading the public.

The report found that the average broadband speed has increased 10% in the last six months as more people try out fast services.

But the gap between advertised and actual speed has widened in the same period. The average advertised speed was 15Mbps, 8.2Mbps faster than the average actual speed.

It also found that more than a third of customers on services advertised as "up to" 24Mbps actually received speeds of 4Mbps or less.

"The research is still telling us that some consumers are not receiving anywhere near the speeds that are being advertised by some ISPs," said Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards.

The watchdog is urging changes in advertising guidance "so that consumers are able to make more informed decisions based on the adverts they see".

Superfast broadband is now available to 57% of UK homes, the report finds.

But three-quarters of broadband services are still delivered via copper-based ADSL technologies, which will always have speed limitations based on the distance between the home and the telephone exchange.

Other factors that slow down a connection include the quality of the wiring in a house and the time of day that the service is used.

Virgin Media is the only ISP able to come close to advertised speeds because cable services are not influenced by distance.

It has spearheaded the campaign to change the way broadband is advertised.

Jon James, executive director of broadband for Virgin Media, said: "The gulf between what's advertised and what speeds customers get continues to grow."

"We remain concerned that people paying for fast broadband are still being misled and believe it is absolutely essential that consumers have all the information they need to make an informed choice," he added.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is currently reviewing broadband advertising. Its report is expected in the next few months.

In a bizarre twist, last month it ruled that Virgin Media's campaign against false advertising itself broke advertising rules.

Andrew Ferguson, co-founder of broadband news site ThinkBroadband thinks more needs to be done to explain the differences between cable and ADSL but is not sure changes to advertising is the correct way.

"Adverts will shift to lifestyle advertising rather than actual facts, and some people may be denied access to products because they would drag the average speed down," he said.

Ofcom has introduced a code of practice to help inform the public about their likely speed before signing up to a service.

It recommends that broadband customers should be given a speed range rather than a single estimate of the maximum speed on their line.

It also suggests that users be allowed to leave their provider without penalty if they receive a maximum speed which is significantly below estimates.

So far, Virgin Media, BT, O2 and Sky have signed up to the code.

Michael Phillips, of comparison website broadbandchoices, is not sure the code goes far enough.

"Ofcom's code of practice has made some steps in the right direction, but without some more careful thought, there's still room for a lot of confusion.

How will my mum know if a service offering 1Mb - 6Mb is better or worse than one providing 2Mb - 5Mb? She needs to know what speed she's most likely to receive most of the time," he said.

He thinks that 'typical speeds' should be made "the gold standard for speed advertising in the same way that banks use 'typical APR' percentages".



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Action urged on mobile notspots

The upcoming 4G mobile auction should be used as an opportunity to upgrade the UK's mobile infrastructure, says an advisory group.

The Communications Consumer Panel said regulator Ofcom should obliged operators to extend services to rural areas.

It also suggested the money made by selling off the airwaves could be used to upgrade rural coverage.

It estimates that three million people live in mobile "not-spots".

The panel said it did not believe that new 4G services would extend beyond existing coverage.

4G is the next-generation for mobile services, offering faster speeds, crucial as more people use smartphones to surf the web.

The panel is suggesting that Ofcom run a "reverse auction" after the initial sell-off, in which operators can bid for money to extend their services in rural areas.

Valuable spectrum

The 4G auctions begin next year with services likely to start rolling out from 2013.

There is a great deal of interest in the spectrum - which has been freed because of the switch to digital TV - as it operates in the low frequency 800MHz band.

This spectrum will be particularly good at penetrating buildings and will allow operators to offer better in-building coverage which is becoming an increasing problem as people use their smartphones at home.

The money freed up by the 4G auctions must be ploughed back into notspots, said the panel.

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It estimates that the UK needs an extra 1,400 base stations to improve rural coverage.

"This is a critical moment, and we have a unique opportunity to resolve the persistent problem of inadequate mobile coverage," said panel chair Bob Warner.

"Most places that were mobile coverage notspots 10 years ago are still notspots today, and the spectrum auction represents perhaps the only chance we have in the next decade to improve coverage in the nations and for rural communities," he added.

The BBC is conducting its own survey into notspots using an app developed by network analysis firm Epitiro.

Ofcom has said that mobile coverage is one of its priorities and is conducting its own research into the problem.

One of the biggest blackspots for mobile coverage is on rail networks.

Research conducted for Ofcom last year found that on the East Coast mainline the probability of maintaining a 15 minute phone call was as low as 10% for two operators.



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Mozilla stars work on mobile code

The creators of the Firefox web browser have started developing an operating system for mobiles and tablets.

Although the project will draw on some parts of Google's Android mobile operating system much of the code will be freshly written.

Once finished the operating system will compete with Android as it will run on the same devices.

The project team said all code development would be done in the open and shared as soon as it was written.

Called Boot To Gecko the code creation is being overseen by the Mozilla Project which created the Firefox browser. It was announced on the Mozilla discussion forum by researcher Andreas Gal.

Gecko is the rendering engine that powers the Firefox browser and the Thunderbird email program. A rendering engine interprets the code on webpages and displays it in the right format on screen.

With B2G, the Mozilla developers aim to get applications running without the need for the browser, effectively creating a web-centred operating system.

It will draw on some core parts of Android but aims to add a wrapper around it that is much more open than the one created by Google. If successful, the project will face stiff competition from Google's Android and Chrome as well as Apple's iOS and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7.

The Mozilla team admitted that the project was in its "infancy" but said it already created some basic software from building blocks that are similar to those needed to get the OS running.

The team said they were publicising the project to root out experts in the Mozilla community and elsewhere who could help and encouraged them to get in touch and sign on.

Mr Gal said the project had set its sights high and wanted to do it "the way we think open source should be done".

Its ultimate goal, he said, was "breaking the stranglehold of proprietary technologies over the mobile device world".



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