Why are Minimum Speed Guarantee different between ISPs ?

So if all (or most) ISPs rely on Openreach for a 1000/115 circuit and they all advertise at 900/100 (except AAISP) because of Advertising Standards Agency.

and ASA also wants ISPs to publish averages of Minimum Speed Guarantee etc here is a list

BT - 700
EE - 700
Sky - 600
Vodafone - 455
Zen - 450

Can I assume that either their customer fibre lines to the property are poor, or the ISP infrastrucre is poor, or they don't purchase enough bandwidth ?

Hi,

In reply to a post by einsteinagogo:

So if all (or most) ISPs rely on Openreach for a 1000/115 circuit and they all advertise at 900/100 (except AAISP) because of Advertising Standards Agency.

and ASA also wants ISPs to publish averages of Minimum Speed Guarantee etc here is a list

BT - 700
EE - 700
Sky - 600
Vodafone - 455
Zen - 450

Can I assume that either their customer fibre lines to the property are poor, or the ISP infrastrucre is poor, or they don't purchase enough bandwidth ?

The short answer is that they are all making a guess and crossing their fingers. Openreach guarantee 110Mbits/sec download on a notional 1Gbits/sec FTTP connection so the ISP could find itself stuck between their customer and Openreach at all of those speeds listed. The ISP knows that Openreach generally exceed the minimum speed that Openreach warrant and are therefore taking a punt that they will be OK. The different minima probably reflect a different willingness to take on commercial risk.

but if these are just all random Minimum Speed Guarantee which are advertised, why would anyone sign up with Zen or Vodafone at half, what others are guaranteeing ?

Each ISP will have their own statistics for the average download per customer, and the way that varies with time of day. Different ISPs may attract a different demographic of user - e.g. some may well attract more technical users that want low latency for online gaming, while other attract people that just stream netflix in the evenings, or whatever.
So, each ISP will choose a minimum guaranteed speed that they feel comfortable to offer, allowing for their user demographic and their infrastructure.
There may also be differences in what recourse customer has if the minimum guarantee isn't reached - some ISPs may allow you to break a long contract, while others may only offer a £20 credit up to 4 times a year.

Edited by sheephouse (Mon 25-Mar-24 16:36:30)

Judging by all the backhaul complaints re zen that minimum speed guarantee might be close to reality.

Hi,

In reply to a post by einsteinagogo:

but if these are just all random Minimum Speed Guarantee which are advertised, why would anyone sign up with Zen or Vodafone at half, what others are guaranteeing ?

Because no-one looks at the numbers, because other factors (e.g. price) are often considered more important and because the numbers are meaningless anyway?

yep, maybe it's to keep people away!

In reply to a post by einsteinagogo:

So if all (or most) ISPs rely on Openreach for a 1000/115 circuit and they all advertise at 900/100 (except AAISP) because of Advertising Standards Agency.

and ASA also wants ISPs to publish averages of Minimum Speed Guarantee etc here is a list

BT - 700
EE - 700
Sky - 600
Vodafone - 455
Zen - 450

Can I assume that either their customer fibre lines to the property are poor, or the ISP infrastrucre is poor, or they don't purchase enough bandwidth ?

Why would you assume that?

AAISP have a 195Mb/s Minimum speed guarantee on their 1000/115 package.

https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/fttp-speeds/

Openreach guarantee 110Mb/s.
If the provider doesn't meet the guarantee they can't do much about it except let you leave your contract penalty free.

Well my assumption is based on if these average speeds published by ISPs based on data from clients and confirmed by speeds for AA

Looks like smaller the ISP slower average speeds is this because they have less infrastructure, because of smaller numbers of clients or they purchased less backhaul connection?

Larger ISPs publishing much higher figures eg 700 from EE/BT

Seems a ripoff if the service being resold is 1000/115 - why do we all not get 900+ all the time or is it like booking seats on a plane if everyone turns up - people get bumped - oversubscribed

Similar with if we all download 900+ , not enough bandwidth at the ISP so contention just farms out 700 each to artificially meet the minimum guarantee to avoid penalties

In reply to a post by einsteinagogo:

Well my assumption is based on if these average speeds published by ISPs based on data from clients and confirmed by speeds for AA

Looks like smaller the ISP slower average speeds is this because they have less infrastructure, because of smaller numbers of clients or they purchased less backhaul connection?

Larger ISPs publishing much higher figures eg 700 from EE/BT

Seems a ripoff if the service being resold is 1000/115 - why do we all not get 900+ all the time or is it like booking seats on a plane if everyone turns up - people get bumped - oversubscribed

Similar with if we all download 900+ , not enough bandwidth at the ISP so contention just farms out 700 each to artificially meet the minimum guarantee to avoid penalties

The GPON delivery to the end user is 2.4GBps shared between the users on the same fibre supplied from wherever the headend is. If you have a 12 port CBT, which is what we have for the GPON service in our road then you get 1/12th of 2.4Gbps, that is 200Mbps, if all the ports are enabled and each customer is simultaneously using their connection as fast as it will go.

The different figures you are seeing are based on what the ISP in question expects in terms of the fibre connection to you and how many users are expected on average, then similar calculations on the next levels of interconnection back to your ISP's own network which will be dimensioned according to what said ISP expects in terms of customer numbers and traffic levels.

Maybe one day there will be enough bandwidth and server capacity for no contention, but it's not here yet. It will be possible to increase the speeds over the fibre but to do so will require the replacement of the ONTs and the headends on the fibres reaching the customer premises.