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Parliamentary committee to examine Broadband Speeds
Monday 29 June 2009 13:07:54 by Sebastien Lahtinen

Following the release of Lord Carter's Digital Britain Report, the Business & Enterprise Committee of the House of Commons has announced today its intention to open an inquiry into broadband speeds in the UK. It will consider, amongst other matters, the following:

  • Whether the 2 Mbps Universal Service Obligation by 2012 is "ambitious enough"?
  • The appropriateness of the Government's broadband tax on copper lines to fund next generation access?
  • Are service providers providing the speeds which they promise?
  • The balance of current regulation encouraging fair competition and investment?

We hope that the inquiry raises the issues surrounding broadband notspots and slow-spots to the forefront of the wider policy debate.

[ Topic: Regulation | 86 comments | link to this item ]
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Comments

Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
Yay. Another committee to discuss the bleedin' obvious. When is this one due to report - doesn't look like it'll be this year. Will they also publish their conclusions then run away?
Posted by herdwick 9 months ago
"Are service providers providing the speeds which they promise? " - I've never seen one promise anything !
Posted by Egg_ 9 months ago
Will this be an "unlimited" report
Posted by rian 9 months ago
"Unlimited" report will be definitely the most interesting debate, lol.
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
Just like ordering a connection. We're all wondering what they are really 'up to' :D
Posted by Somerset 9 months ago
Simple question - how do we provide broadband to people who get eg. less than 5M?

If they can answer that then it's progress. Will they? Probably not.
Posted by chrysalis 9 months ago
I wonder if we will see a 3mbit USO with the government trying to get praise saying they set it above and beyond what was reccomended, and perhaps a tax of only 40p per line.
Posted by Egg_ 9 months ago
We already know the answer, we will be investing in outdated performance by the time this ill thought out tax is able to achieve anything.

ISPs simply do what they want, which is the biggest problem.

With BT now holding all the cards demanding external cash before updating anything, they are in effect holding everyone to ransom. They even want BBC cash for allowing users access to iPlayer.
Shame they couldn't plough their ridiculous profits back into their system, they've milked everyone for years on their outdated copper infrastructure.
Posted by Egg_ 9 months ago

We are being held back in the speed and availability stakes because ISPs expect government/public funding when it is totally their responsibility to be competitive and provide an up to date service.

First place to look BT wholesale.

Posted by Egg_ 9 months ago
As for speed, no one is checking what ISPs can deliver. After being told for years my line couldn't handle more than 2 meg I swapped ISPs. An engineer came, laughed and said quite simply the other company were not trying to give anything more in the first place. The exact same line now runs at 7.5 meg.

Lies and untruths are everywhere, with ill informed posters on many forums helping perpetuate ISP folklore and myths, which really does not help.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
Egg - BT are very conservative in the speeds they rate and offer, prefering stability to speed. This is a concious choice they make, and to a large degree I can't disagree - there are plenty of other ISP's out there who'll give you speed.

And yes, it's a shame regulations have made BT's RoI ridiculously low and stopped them from proper investment. (And BT are not "demanding" anything, they're making observations about the scope of FTTC rollout is all)
Posted by andrew (Favicon staff member) 9 months ago
At end of the day, if we the public want better broadband, a hard truth is that we may just have to pay more for it.

Alas another committee may mean more delays for projects already in the pipeline.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
Governments "do" committees. There's nothing in there suggesting that it'll delay allready-scheduled action items.

And another way to get better broadband would be to drop much of the expensive regulation...
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
We are being held back by our collective unwillingness to pay for decent speeds and service. Some of that could be fixed by educating people into what goes on behind the scenes but for most people that's more than they want to know.

ISPs (and Ofcom!) need to stop pushing low cost and start to push service quality.
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
Incidently - I've just been chatting with an America colleague living in Minneapolis. He's paying $35pcm for a 1.5Mb cable service. He also provided this alternative view of LLU:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/monticello-appeals-court-win.ars

So don't beleive all the hype about how wonderful it is in other countries.
Posted by Dixinormous 9 months ago
I would hope that no-one is naive enough to think that it's all sunshine and light in other countries Andrue. We pay a below average price and in return receive a below average service.
Posted by meldrew 9 months ago
Surely the ISPs are commercial organisations offering the customer a product at a price. There would seem to be plenty of competition and no shortage of customers! I therefore cannot see what the Government has got to do with it in the first place.
Posted by meldrew 9 months ago
P S Could the comment box actually be restricted to 600 characters? I was working up to a full scale rant and have now forgotten the rest of my post.....!
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
@Meldrew21:The 'need' for government interference is based on a need for investment that the private sector is not making. The private sector isn't making that investment because of the low prices that result from high levels of competition.

Ironically that low pricing is what the government wanted originally and was provided by Ofcom.
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
What I and a few others think is really needed is for people to see broadband for what it really is. Unfortunately they see it like other utilities and assume that since the connection is in place the costs are fixed.

In that scenario going for lowest cost is sensible. The gas/electricity/water you get is the same regardless of cost. This is fundamentally not true of BB.

/That/ is what people need to understand.
Posted by meldrew 9 months ago
AndrueC - The private sector invest when they anticipate a return on their investment. If there is no return there is no demand at the price that would be required to produce one. The government no longer provide gas, water, electricty, and a half decent train service. I believe that the real economic need for the internet is already being met. Incidently private investment in TV results in charges of £50 per month. Would you pay that to download movies?
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
@meldrew:Demand doesn't always lead to investment. The UK's electricity generating industry is facing a shortfall and we will be lucky if we avoid brownouts over the coming decade.

I don't think we need highspeed BB now either but we do need it for the future. If we don't start building it soon it'll be too late.

If the network providers wait until the demand is there (as they likely will) we will face years of genuinely inadequate service.
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
Either way - they aren't going to invest in a market when pretty much all the operators are making annual losses. Only government departments do that kind of thing.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
meldrew - Yea, the government managed the misery line and 70% reliability as LTS rail. C2C now has 95% on the same line. Hmm.

AndrueC - Because of the anti-nuclear NIMBY's, yea. If private enterprise had been able to start building them a decade ago...well...they wanted to. Government regulations said no.
Posted by GMAN99 9 months ago
Agreed ^ as I've been saying for what seems like eons now forget we are talking about comms, no business will invest in anything unless they are going to see a profit in it. Its the same for any industry, take out high speed broadband and replace it with a any product, if they can't get a return and a good one at that it won't ever happen. So people stop bleating on like its something you deserve or have a right to have like the air you breath its a service, one you have now for relative peanuts, if you want something better you need to pay more. Fast broadband isn't a right.
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
@Dawn:That's only part of the problem with generation. Companies weren't invested in anything. In fact they were mothballing stations because they weren't cost effective. That even led to cannibalistion for spare parts. When there were issues in early winter '07 there was a short of standby stations because several of them were missing vital equipment.
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
Where I think the NIMBYs are causing real problems is in the rush to try and correct the issue. I don't think the lack of nuclear investment is what caused the problem. Companies didn't want to invest in conventional generation let alone expensive nuclear.
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
But to return to BB. It hinges on how we view BB. If it's just a handy facility that makes life easier and gives access to a bit of entertainment then the current situation is fine.

OTOH it is becoming more important than that. It has the potential over time to become as important as electricity, gas and telephones. If it could allow teleworking to become dominant over commuting the savings are huge.

That's when leaving it to private industry to expand as the RoI dictates is less clever. The trick is to give enough of a nudge without paying for it and/or taking ownership of it.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
AndrueC - See the difference between base load and on-demand power. We've badly overbuilt gas plants. And sorry, but the basic halting of nuclear plant building research and building was very much the NIMBY's.

I'd also point out that internet access is now, per the EU, an essential like gas and electric.
Posted by timmay 9 months ago
The government should take over Openreach making it a government owned company and invest now to make fibre available to all ASAP.

But nothing will ever change in this country we have to have all our long winded reports that will all be out of date by the time they are published.
Posted by cyberdoyle 9 months ago
Not wanting to bleat, but what we have now is 90% of the land mass without 1st gen broadband, and millions of homes with no connection at all despite what BT say. It is ok to say that companies won't invest if they are making a loss, but instead of govt putting money in they could concentrate on removing obstacles that cost money to get round. They could lift the tax on fibre, make duct sharing mandatory, make all the utilities share resources, and lift restrictions that highways and environment agencies put on construction costs.
Posted by cyberdoyle 9 months ago
cont: It shouldn't cost that much to deploy fibre in place of copper. Problem solved for everyone... we already have the best 1st gen network in the world, why not update it now? why keep patching it up and waiting till it falls apart?
Posted by Somerset 9 months ago
90% of land mass without broadband, what are you saying? Run fibre into fields?

Nothing to do with deploying fibre instead of copper - it's in addition to.

Patching what up?
Posted by chrysalis 9 months ago
its all too easy to put all the blame on the public for not willing to pay, but who is the organisation promoting excessive competition and obsessed with low retail prices? ofcom.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
Cyberdoyle - except it will cost /that/ much, and 95%+ of the homes out of range will be able to get a ADSL service with the far, far cheaper FTTC.

And making duct sharing mandatory would delay rollouts severely. Ditto "sharing resources". It can take well over a year to get permission to fix a single cable in the ground in some council areas now.
Posted by donkey_hellfire 9 months ago
Totally off topic but anyone who wants to be correctly informed about sustainable energy production should read this free PDF / book, recently written by a Cambridge professor.

http://www.withouthotair.com/
Posted by mikeblogs 9 months ago
The tax contribution by companies, employees and customers, in all taxes from Business Rates to VAT is in this sector is well in excess of £20bn per anumn, this excludes £900m collective interest being paid on £21bn 3 heist monies from 2001 - Very crude and I will improve the number.

I reckon HMG Treasury are missing a trick. If the non-existant big plan, come the exaflood was to foresee the need for every home to be on average consuming 20Gbytes a month by 2012 for all service.. to be contin
Posted by mikeblogs 9 months ago
..ued from Voice to file transfers, it ought to result in an increased yield to HMG. It something exists and can be taxed then it will be.

Given voice is literally disappearing into the ether, then forming a tax policy on our bits is crucial to future tax receipts. Meeting our appetite for bits is key to increasing the yield from the sector.

Constraining bandwidth will constrain tax yield. Invest now and take a slicer a slice of a bigger pot when it arrives.
Posted by Dixinormous 9 months ago
Why would mandatory duct sharing delay rollout significantly?

I'm interested as the experience elsewhere appears to be that the only party that suffers from it is the incumbent, in our case BT. I would have thought it lowers barriers to entry for new entrants and encourages infrastructure competition.

Duct sharing in Paris, requiring all fibre operators to share infrastructure, appears to be working ok.

cyber - land mass remains irrelevant, population is the only relevant coverage metric.
Posted by nmg196 9 months ago
The minimum USO speed should be 3.5Mb so you can watch BBC iPlayer in High Definition :)
Posted by GMAN99 9 months ago
"but what we have now is 90% of the land mass without 1st gen broadband" - Wha? What has land mass to do with anything are you saying run cables to homes that may never exist so we've complete coverage of the isles needed or not? Its coverage of existing & new homes that matter and AFAIK we are doing ok on that front
Posted by IanMott 9 months ago
If BT had not been prevented from installing fibre when the government were pursuing the cable TV providers BT would have been in a better position to meet the challenge of providing high speed links. I think therefore that the government needs to assist BT and others to install a system that will provide not just 2Mbps but will provide a service that will take use back to the leader in the communications technology

Ian
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
The government should not be allowed to take over any part of BT. No-one old enough to remember how the PO ran the telephones could possibly advocate that.

Openreach are also doing a pretty good overall. Probably the best of the BT divisions. Unfortunately their customers are the ISPs so even if the public say they want next gen. if the ISPs don't ask BTor for it then it won't happen.

It's hard enough rolling out in anticipation of customer demand but rolling out in anticipation of customer demand from your customer's customers is even worse.
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
I reckon BTor would love to roll out fibre. Probably their dream project - lots of potential revenue for them, hiring more engineers, 'jollies' from equipment manufacturers, all that sexy kit to drool over.

BTor's customers are a lot easier to deal with. They sign contracts and BTor can get commitment to financing. Even an assured RoI.

The problem is with us. ISPs can't get any commitment from us and most of the demand is either technically ignorant or coming from a small minority of vocal nerds abusing the service.
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
..the other problem is that just because one division of BT likes the idea doesn't mean that the group as a whole does. And if you want to spend many billions you can bet that you need full group approval.

So all in all I imagine BTor are on our side in this. Frustrated, annoyed and chomping on the bit to be let loose.

:)
Posted by jumpmum 9 months ago
Dixie, see http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aU2TUwElRrCo for what France Telecom think of Duct / Fibre sharing.
Seems to be only a return if an infrastructure monopoly.
OFCOM should mandate ALL new builds over 10 homes per site to be served by Fibre to the Home. Would be cheaper than Copper and future proof
Posted by herdwick 9 months ago
OFCOM have no control over developers. They can happily build high value houses 8km from the exchange and ride off into the sunset leaving BT or a USO struggling to connect the £500k+ homes at all.

Duct sharing is a smoke screen to hide the lack of a business case for fibre.
Posted by Dixinormous 9 months ago
jumpmum - does that refer to duct sharing though? A 3rd party being able to demand that the incumbent install fibre for their own use is perhaps bizarre. Should be at the incumbent's discretion where they put their fibre and then the customer's choice which provider to use once the infrastructure is in place.
Posted by Dixinormous 9 months ago
AndrueC - I am very sure BTO would love to deploy the fibre they do after all sell capacity and it would both give them more capacity to sell and greatly reduce their costs. It would be Wholesale that would be raising the objections, Retail being indifferent. You must be in on the same 'conspiracy theory' that I am ;)
Posted by GMAN99 9 months ago
"Posted by IanMott -
If BT had not been prevented from installing fibre when the government were pursuing the cable TV providers BT would have been in a better position to meet the challenge of providing high speed links."- Amen to that. People love to blame BT but its Ofcom that stopped them deploying fibre to give the upcoming cable companies a head start in the Market (what was Mercury/Cable & Wireless at the time). I understand why it was done, but what done is done and now we see the effects of that decision.
Posted by AndrueC 9 months ago
@Dixi:Yeah, that's pretty much how I'd see it. I'm not sure I'd go for conspiracy though. Just typical muddle-headed corporate thinking.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
Dixi- Because the system for getting permission to dig up roads in France dosn't require the same hoops it does here.
Posted by Dixinormous 9 months ago
@AndrueC Nah I never considered it a conspiracy just a comment made elsewhere. It makes perfect sense from the Wholesale point of view I guess.

@Dawn - Then duct sharing and the digging it would save would be even more beneficial!
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
You're missing the point, Dixi. Requiring duct sharing here would effectively force a company to delay putting in the ducting until they could make the requirements for said sharing. You cannot under UK law allow access after-the-fact to cable without a total transfer.
Posted by Dixinormous 9 months ago
Hi Dawn, I was actually thinking more of the existing ducting being made available, this would help at least some people out.

The other issues are matters of UK law as you quite rightly said, and sadly the government shows no signs of being proactive in this regard as it requires some clue rather than a simple tax and throw cash.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
Yea, unfortunately there are massive legal liability and insurance issues involved without doing company shell games which annoy the inland revenue :/

And BT have asked several times for this to be cleaned up, so yea, very much the government..
Posted by dmjoshi 9 months ago
On 7/5/09 my Virgin Media (NTL) line was upgraded from XL to XXL, 20Mb to 50Mb. On thinkbroadband speed test it has never gone higher than 30Mb, mostly around 20Mb, except once when Virgin Technical hand monitoring at the other end asked me to run the test. Just that once, on 22/6/09 test gave 47Mb.
Posted by cyberdoyle 9 months ago
I am used to a 2Mbps connection. I work a lot with the community on a daily basis. I am just visiting my daughter who lives next to an LLU exchange. She gets over 5Mbps. Have been upgrading and installing software on various computers here. The JOY of downloading stuff in quick time has made it an eyeopener. Everything is so much easier and painless. Why put up with slow speeds in this day and age when technology is advancing so quickly? If fibre means we can do our work quicker then a dripping tap needs turning on.
Posted by cyberdoyle 9 months ago
40% of the population live in the 90% of the land mass that will never get fibre anywhere near them unless govt intervention makes access to EXISTING ducts available. Also the tax on lighting fibre needs removing/reducing until rollout is complete. Councils/highways/environment/utilities need to get into the habit of joined up thinking and make the job easier instead of creating expensive obstacles and hoops. (just to clarify my earlier post)
Posted by Somerset 9 months ago
Who will use these 'existing ducts'?
Posted by bain72pc 9 months ago
After many years of being a customer with BT I have now taken a package with Sky. Totally fed up phoning Mumbia and the extremely rude treatment I got from BT when I asked for my MAC Code to go to another provider. The result of their bad behaviour was my migrating not just my broadband but my telephone service as well. A once great company slowly sliding down the tube. My opinion as an ordinary Joe is that if BT can't handle the lines it give it to someone else who can.
Posted by bain72pc 9 months ago
Posted by AndrueC 5 days ago
"I reckon BTor would love to roll out fibre. Probably their dream project - lots of potential revenue for them, hiring more engineers, 'jollies' from equipment manufacturers, all that sexy kit to drool over."

I saw engineers working on the box close to our house and asked them if they were putting in fibre optic cable to be told no - THEY WERE TAKING THAT OUT AND PUTTING IN COPPER - I couldn't believe my ears!
Posted by bigshotpete 9 months ago
I've been with BT's 2Mb service, and, also got extremely fed up with their Mumbai connection and total ineptitude when I asked the simple question of where my speed had gone. Quit them and now with Virgin's 20Mb connection, only to face the same problem. Their brochure advertises "download whatever you want, whenever you want". Ha, what a joke. Providing they dont cap your bandwidth.
If ISP's promise a speed then they should be able to deliver, if not then it's them who are in breach of contract.
Posted by TerFar 9 months ago
Before BT was sold off by Ma Thatcher, there was talk of fibre to every UK home and business. Oftel/Ofcom (whatever the QUANGO calls itself today) has always been a weak bunch of dodgers. The users know what they want: the regulators don't have a clue.
Posted by dragon1945 9 months ago
BT only offered 512 kbps, but charged as though I was getting 2MB. I changed to Pipex Homecall [before Tiscali wrecked it] and got 1.4 MB. As that dropped to 330 kbps under Tiscali I changed to Talktalk, with free BB, and got 1.6 MB. After recent tweaking I got 1.79 MB. Why can't BT do that? It's the same telephone line after all. We will never have Cable TV or fibre out here. Sky free BB is not available either.
Posted by bain72pc 9 months ago
I have been complaining to BT about paying for 2MB and only getting just over 512kbps for over 3 years. They have been very happy to pocket my hard earned cash but never lifted a finger to increase my speed. I know that I probably won't get any better speed with Sky but I'm just happy to jump out the sinking ship that's heading for the rocks because the captain and the crew couldn't gige a toss about loyal customers.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
And you have, of course, tried plugging into the master BT socket, bain? In the end though, if you're a long way from the exchange, you're a long way from the exchange. And BT are working on FTTC for that problem.

TerFar - Ohlol. Yea, look up why BT has so many redidual problems with their predecessor layout aluminum everywhere someday.

dragon1945 - Because they profile for stability, not speed.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
bain72pc - And if you have a complaint about BT using copper, take it up with the government, they were the ones who prevented BT from entering the cable market.
Posted by bain72pc 9 months ago
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 11 minutes ago
bain72pc - And if you have a complaint about BT using copper, take it up with the government, they were the ones who prevented BT from entering the cable market.

Fat chance! Surely BT has access to cable just like their competitors or are you saying the government actually prevent BT from buying the same fibre optic cable available to the other broadband companies?
Posted by bain72pc 9 months ago
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 19 minutes ago
And you have, of course, tried plugging into the master BT socket, bain?

Yep but to no avail. I'm about 3.6 miles away from the exchange - is that too far. Someone I know whose house I could hit with a thrown stone can get much faster speeds so I'm slightly dubious about that point.
Posted by Somerset 9 months ago
bain72c - which other broadband companies are installing fibre optic? (VM not included)
Posted by bain72pc 9 months ago
Posted by Somerset about 4 hours ago
bain72c - which other broadband companies are installing fibre optic? (VM not included)

I'm not an expert on these things just a dissatisfied BT customer but the point I was making was that the engineer told me they(BT) were removing the fibre optic cable and connecting up COPPER cable to me that sounded kinda stupid. Either he was winding me up or I misunderstood him or he was indeed turning the clock back.
Posted by Somerset 9 months ago
This was the removal of TPON so customers could have broadband over copper. An FTTC installation would probably use different, new, fibre into a new cabinet so not so stupid after all.
Posted by bain72pc 8 months ago
Posted by Somerset about 2 hours ago
This was the removal of TPON so customers could have broadband over copper. An FTTC installation would probably use different, new, fibre into a new cabinet so not so stupid after all.

Listen Mr, I said I wasn't an expert but I did say the guy told me they were changing the FIBRE OPTIC to COPPER which sounded to me like a backward step because I aint got a clue about TPON or FTTC so maybe you can explain what they mean instead of being a clever dick. By the way do you work for BT?
Posted by chrysalis 8 months ago
somerset how sure are you that the fibre in place wouldnt work with FTTC? I would be shocked if it was cheaper to replace the fibre with copper rather than stick some dslams in the cabinet. BT really are backward thinking and that just shows stuck they are in their ways when they removing fibre from cabinets.
Posted by Somerset 8 months ago
It won't be as simple as 'sticking some DSLAM's in'. Are you in a LLU area? That would complicate things. The FTTC trials have just started so it could be a while before your exchange area gets covered.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 8 months ago
Bain72pc - "optic fibre" is not the panacea which some people push it at. If you had a line with TPON, which is technically optic fibre, then you can't get ADSL. Removing the fibre is entirely reasonable.

Chrysalis - It wouldn't support modern high speed connections. It can support ISDN, but that's not exactly, well, speedy.
Posted by cyberdoyle 8 months ago
'Removing the fibre is entirely reasonable.' Well that is the stupidest thing I have heard you say Dawn. Why not bring some fibre up to the TPON in the cabinet and give people a better connection instead of sending them back to the donkey of ADSL?
Posted by Dixinormous 8 months ago
Amusingly it was TPON that would have been the fibre deployed according to BT's famous FTTP plan - they trialled TPON to the home in Bishop's Stortford in 1989.

TPON could have been converted to BPON - 622/155.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 8 months ago
Because, Cyber, digging fibre to the cabinet for a few lines and for single, old fibres which couldn't support high speed connections would be silly. Most of those TPON fibres are also not rated to last past 2010, which was another reason they needed removing.

Dixi - No, that was a considerably higher grade of fibre...
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 8 months ago
More, Cyber, what prooduct would they use? They'd be on a parallel, expensive infrastructure just for them and the cost would be appropriate to that. Only a few MK exchanges would of been viable for that, and it wold of likely delayed their broadband even further because it would of involved getting the regulator's approval...
Posted by Somerset 8 months ago
cyber - what would you put on both ends of this old fibre in your scheme?
Posted by cyberdoyle 8 months ago
somerset, I would put a customer and the ether.

It is up to the telcos to figure out the equipment needed. Not to go back to the cheapest easiest donkey. And Dawn, the regulator is holding the whole shebang up, and is one of the quangos that might be dissolved with a bit of luck very soon. The money that pays their wages can go into the Next Gen pot.
Posted by RobFlet 8 months ago
OK OK ...

What about us on old Aluminium lines which are noisey (of course), and severely limit our broadband speeds????

I would like to see a proper rolling replacement of these as they are OK for voice (BT's prime biz ... ho ho), but as useful as a piece of wet string for high speed broadband (ie anything approaching OVER 1 meg!)

Yes, 1 meg is high speed to me!!!
Posted by RobFlet 8 months ago
My NEW up to 8 megs is settling down to around 0.9 meg for £19.99 a month ....

My old 512k fixed line was only £14.99 ...

So, is 0.4 megs speed up worth £5 a month extra???
Posted by bain72pc 8 months ago
Since I changed from BT to Sky my speed has increased from 0.6MB to 1.78MB - all from the exact same BT lines!! It's all a bit confusing to me why couldn't BT give me this same speed? It's not revolutionary but it might have kept me with them as a customer. Poor customer relations?
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