the problem is ofcom's data has lower numbers than on VMs website.

well yeah cause someone has let VM skip by their congestion issues and got away with national skewed averages. But still cable isnt available everywhere.

Thinking about it some more I would do something like this but isp's would fight tooth and nail against it.

1 - No speed at all shown on product page if no postcode/address data entered. Only other specs of product such as usage limit, bonus features etc.
2 - After data is entered, expected speed is shown, for tech's like FTTP and cable where the only variable is congestion, then peak time speeds are shown for average for the localised area, e.g. the node. For DSL services a estimate is provided internally, then checked against peak time performance, if no expected congestion the estimate (minus overheads) can be used, otherwise its reduced further for expected peak time congestion and then that value shown to the end user.
3 - There can be a note provided in smaller text saying that during off peak hours speeds may be faster and up to the max burst speed of the product, for DSL the line estimate would be placed there, for FTTP/cable it would be the connection speed so e.g. gigabit/sec.

Finally the regulator would add an "automatic" compensation scheme to discourage abuse of the system, if a customer proves the expected speeds are unrealistic they are automatically refunded "double" the value of their contract. This also discourages longer contracts to a degree as a longer contract would of course be a higher penalty for failing to meet speed expectations. The system in place for proving failure could be a video clip showing ethernet speedtesting on a mutually approved speedtester such as one hosted by ofcom, failing to get within 10% of the expected speed 3 times during peak time hours with tests at least 10 minutes apart, indicating the subpar performance is lasting for sustained periods.

Downsides I already know, added complication of calculating localised speeds, customers could abuse this, effort required to get the refund might be considered excessive for lazy people, the speedtester used needs to be reliable. No osolution is going to be flawless, there is always going to be things people wont like about it, to me a solution is something that puts fears into the mind of the isp, something that encourages investment to get higher advertised speeds. Also the way national advertising on tv, in newspapers etc. would not be affected by this and be a separate issue. To help combat issues on those platforms, things like Fibre need to get banned in hybrid broadband adverts. Which we now have a pending court case for because the ASA cannot do its job.

Some obvious issues with user speedtesting is that you don't know what else is happening on the line when the speedtesting is done (user could be downloading the Internet at the same time as doing the speedtest). Also, there is still the issue that on ADSL/FTTC a single unfiltered device or dodgy extension can massively impact on the speed.

To be fair to providers all tests would have to be done from the test socket (if ADSL/VDSL) with only the device running the test plugged in. That would definitely be a faff for most customers. I really see little in the way of options to make this truly fair on providers and customers.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Some obvious issues with user speedtesting is that you don't know what else is happening on the line when the speedtesting is done (user could be downloading the Internet at the same time as doing the speedtest).

I suppose it could be done with cooperation from the router: e.g. use SNMP to measure the total traffic through the router WAN port, when the test is active.

Also, there is still the issue that on ADSL/FTTC a single unfiltered device or dodgy extension can massively impact on the speed.

That's true, and this is something that customers can also expect to see in practice. The question is, who's responsible for diagnosing and fixing such problems? It would be unfair on the ISP to penalise them in this scenario, and the wafer-thin margins they work on make it uneconomical to send out engineers all the time.

So I've just got my desktop quote back and was pleasently suprised that it came in at £8000+VAT. Providing that the physical survey doesn't uncover anything major then my TOC is coming in favourable.
What is the criteria on the voucher scheme? I've been trading as a consultancy for the last 18 months. Is there any restriction on the type of businesses eligable?

I'm just about to pull the trigger on a desktop survey so we'll see what suprises lay in store.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by 1nfern0:

It's been interesting to see this thread evolve. I got a quote last year which came in at around £3500 + £165 for 3 years from Cerberus which I thought was quite reasonable. As self employed contractor, I thought it was best to hold off until my contract was renewed which unfortunately fell after the change in Costing.

If was to get a requote, am I now looking at 30k+ for the install?

Maybe. Firstly you need to go to a service provider who does FTTPoD and ask them for a free quotation. This will be an OpenReach "desk survey" and is a non-binding price estimate. Some people have been quoted as much as £39K (*), although there is a small chance it could be as low as £4K. You can get some examples from earlier in this thread, or try this blog post.

If you're happy with the price quoted then you can place an order. At this point, a physical survey will be done and a final binding price will be generated. If you're not happy with the price at that point you can drop out by paying £250 to cover the cost of the survey. (There has been some wishful thinking that the price might fall between the desk survey and the physical survey, but I have yet to see any evidence of that)

The new price will almost certainly be higher than your quote under the old system, but there are a few things which may at least partly offset this:

* The monthly fees are less. Previously you would have paid £165 x 36 = £5,940 for the first three years service; now you can expect to pay £100 x 12 + £62.50 x 24 = £2,700. In other words, about £3,240 of extra install cost was being hidden in the first three year's rental.

* The contract is only 12 months, which may make you feel more comfortable about the level of commitment you are taking on. If you cease your FTTPoD service after 12 months, you can always restart it later as a regular FTTP (with a slightly larger choice of service providers, some of whom offer cash incentives for taking new FTTP service)

* If you are trading as a business, you may be eligible for £3K government voucher

Therefore if your new quote comes out at £9,740 or less, and you're eligible for the government voucher, then you'll be no worse off than you were before. And there's an additional side benefit that instead of just activating one property, the project may FTTP-enable some of your neighbours too; that is, there's a community benefit, which didn't happen under the old FTTPoD system.

If you have neighbours who are really keen for FTTP then in theory they can club together with you and apply for additional £500 vouchers towards the total bill. This sounds like it would be a nightmare to administer - and it's not clear to me whether they'd also be required to take service from the same service provider as you - but you can explore this option if the pricing is marginal.

(*) All prices plus VAT

In reply to a post by 1nfern0:

What is the criteria on the voucher scheme? I've been trading as a consultancy for the last 18 months. Is there any restriction on the type of businesses eligable?

https://gigabitvoucher.culture.gov.uk/for-businesses...

In reply to a post by brookheather:

https://gigabitvoucher.culture.gov.uk/for-businesses...

And for the full details:
https://gigabitvoucher.culture.gov.uk/wp-content/upl...

Not the best written article, little detail but shows you what is possible

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/villag...

1GB up and down too

The FoD thread went on for a long time, but is somewhat unwieldy now, so the usual closure.

For those who may have been in mid flow, start a new thread with an appropriate title and link back to the post you are replying to if context is needed.