WEEKLY COMMENT: Let's just call a speed a speed

Freeserve, while again showing its vast propensity to moan, raised a vaulable issue when it complained this week about Oftel's new broadband research review. The regulator led particularly on the fact that the UK now has two and a quarter million broadband-enabled homes, despite more than half of those using services of less than 512Kbps, the rate at which video streaming and many other 'broadband' applications become genuinely feasible.

However, this would not be a huge problem except that the last time it issued such figures, Oftel established that it believed 'broadband' to start at 256Kbps, since 256 can cope with video. It used 128Kbps services in those figures, it said, purely to enable comparisons with its European rivals, which begin measuring at the lower speed.

Deciding a base rate will be helpful to all - not least to consumers who can at last know what they'll be getting as a very minimum when a company advertises its service as being broadband. The issue goes to the route of the greatest problem new media ever faced - over-promise and under-delivery.

Thanks to BT's massive broadband campaign, most TV viewers must be aware that 'broadband' is 'ten times faster' than normal access. But given this is probably the only campaign they've ever seen, they could be forgiven for assuming that all so-called broadband services are just as quick. Imagine their disappointment if they bought Tiscali's 150Kbps service under that illusion. The promises of WAP, iTV and new media as a whole will come flooding back and each will need even greater persuasion of its benefits than before.

Tiscali is actually pledging to pursue a more sensible route. From now on, it says, its services will be sold as 3x, 5x, 10x, 20x faster etc., rather than just on their broadband tag. This a much more transparent and consumer-friendly approach - no frills, no (given it's Hallowe'en, I'll say it) BS, and no deception. BT has been the worst of the deceivers in this sense; it's brave new mobile surfing generic ads being the classic example of how to promise everything without explaining anything. However, BT's access head Alison Ritchie agrees that only 512 and over will do if broadband is to deliver anything like consumers have been promised, even going so far as to admit that speeds under 500Kbps "do not provide the same internet experience for customers".

The entire debate also leads to unfair criticism of so-called 'midband' services, i.e. access packages with dial-up speeds of 128Kbps. These services fill a valuable role that both Tiscali and BT, as well as the cable operators, have identified as being worthwhile. If indeed, more than half of all 'high-speed' users are on those kinds of speeds, there must be a genuine demand, whether as a stop-gap or if only to mildly relieve the frustration of connecting to services and viewing email over a standard dial-up connection. They will doubtless act as a stepstone for users to soon upgrade to the faster speeds on which much of the industry is now relying in order to sell their ever more premium services. Once one has experienced slightly quicker access, all one wants is more.

Comparison with Europe is important, though it's doubtful the government would be so keen for such transparency were it a lagger in the access charts. As it is, the UK is seen as something of a model over the river for how to stimulate broadband roll-out through free market rather than interventionist measures - in fact, the review just performed by Oftel is the one of the very few actually completed by an EU nation, despite the central government's request for them to be produced by every member state so it can start deciding on an EU-wide policy to stimulate roll-out. Our country's best benchmark for how it is doing in IT progression is with its culturally closer cousins in Europe - and, if they insist on calling broadband anything faster than dial-up, then so be it, however, Oftel must do more to emphasise that such a definition could mislead consumers.

Given we all know anything less than 512Kbps to be far from capable of genuinely handling 'broadband' services, and that midband fulfils a crucial need in drawing more users to higher speeds, it would be nice for ISPs, regulators and BT to sit down and agree to call a speed a speed. Comparison with our European neighbours would still be possible and perhaps we can soon help to persuade them to do the same.

28 October 2003:

26 September 2003:



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