RMS is 'Average long term power' - Never was continuous and certainly not short term peak.

I was shocked too when I read that power rms is a meaningless number.

Most ISPs do not really quote download speeds, they quote sync speeds. I have always thought it a grey area that Ofcom/ASA have never fully cleared up. SSE are providing you with a good sync speeds but are running their network very hot.

Given the fact they are generally very cheap then something has to give and the easiest thing to reduce is the backhaul meaning that the service runs slower and slower as congestion builds. Unfortunately most people are just going for the cheapest package and then aren't happy when the service suffers from congestion.

Sorry to say but if you want the cheapest package then this is the sort of service you are likely to get.

The isssue is not about cheapness but lack of standards enabling consumers to compare one offer with another in a marketplace where ISPs and consumers can compete on fair terms. A new entrant ISP may offer a cheaper deal to allow them to compete. But if their deal bundle is not easy to compare, then the consumer hasn't a clue what they will get because there are too many grey intangibles. When they do get it they can't easily cancel without penalities. If a consumer buys goods or services in a shop they are protected by Sales of Goods or Credit Acts and can return it within a time period.

The process of selling broadaband needs to be run along similar lines to energy contracts. Switching needs to be easier and faster without the long contract lock in penalties and the service needs to be better defined so consumers know what they can expect. Price to the consumer shouldn't define quality of broadband service as you suggest. If consumers signed up with an ISP and paid more, there is no guarantee the ISP won't be altering their service parameters during your contract.

The present situation of contractual lock in for a year or 18 months is bad for consumers and bad for new entrant ISPs who may want to offer a comparable service at a lower price and build their business.

Price almost always defines quality. SSE are selling so cheap that they can't make a profit unless they provide a much lower rate service.

It has taken years for the energy markets to get where they are and even now I would say they are nowhere near perfect - and the energy market is much simply because it is very easy to count the "units" supplied and the cost of those units.

Broadband is not so simple. Price of a unit can depend on how many other people are consuming units at that exact moment in time. So, rather than charge per unit they try and guess how many units in total will be used simultaneously. If they buy to much capacity then they lose a lot of money. If they buy too little then people see contention and speeds suffer. But, the threshold between the two is quite small and it takes time to get more capacity so whilst they may be fine for a while unless they plan very well they could soon be struggling with contention with months before they can buy more capacity.

Ofcom should be setting clear rules on advertising. But, what you really want is them to guarantee peak speeds - but how to measure it? What do you measure speed to? There are many other things that could slow things down (wifi, badly configured router, duff filter, local extension wiring, congestion at the destination server, congestion on destination server links, congestion on intermediate links, etc). So, without a standard test that rules all these things out Ofcom can't easily enforce throughput requirements - so they only really base on sync speed as that is relatively easily measured (although still impacted by some of my previous list)..

In reply to a post by professor973:

Always has been in the world of electronics I have been involved in!
RMS stands for Root Mean Square and will give an 'average' value, as opposed to a peak value. it will be the dc heating power for a sine wave. This works out to be 0.707 of the peak value for a sine wave.

No.

YES! My reply was to the idiot that said there was NO such thing as RMS - Totally wrong and a world away from what RMS actually actuallay is!

Edited by professor973 (Mon 04-Jul-16 21:11:13)

What you wrote about power is all wrong and is why the point about "RMS power" is made in the first place.

Please do elaborate on why RMS power is "all wrong"?

In reply to a post by mrvanx:

Please do elaborate on why RMS power is "all wrong"?

Erm, I never said "RMS power is all wrong" and such a statement wouldn't make any sense, so I can't elaborate sorry.