ASA/CAP does not apply to BT Retail?

With the recent ASA/CAP rules than came into place on April 1st, we spent alot of time speaking to the ASA and getting our web site checked over for clarity.

Naturally we have kept a close eye on how the legal bods at the bigger ISPs have read the guidelines. A number of changes have started to appear, but the one that has confused me is BT Retail which IMHO has not (at time of writing) got into the spirit of things.

I can see they have lowered the up to speeds (up to speeds are allowed btw editors of TBB, we confirmed with ASA) from 20Mbps to 16Mbps (interesting; and unexpected), however I now note they word everything as "in a high speed area"....again an interesting phrase.

Clarity in the legal bit seems to make claim that 80% of people are in a "high speed area". Our own data would not place 80% of our customers in what I presume BT are claiming as 21CN (ADSL2+ upgraded) areas, let alone 16Mbps.

Whilst I can see that the line checker on their site does give you line data, as it always has, I can not find any examples of "'X% of our customers receive speeds below YMbps for service ABC'" on their site.

I know it's early days.

TBB Editor - where have I said up to is not allowed?

BT Wholesale has announced ADSL2+ WBC coverage to be 80% of UK households.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5100-bt-wholesale...

On the "'X% of our customers receive speeds below YMbps for service ABC'" I do not recall any absolute requirement for providers to show this information. It was an example of how if they wanted to provide speed ranges they could word it.

The CAP Help Note very much applies to BT Retail.
It is entirely feasible that you have a different customer demographic to BT, both type of customer and location.

Is listing Downstream Line Sync limit within the spirit of the changes, I am not so sure. If it was a supplementary thing perhaps, but the thrust of the CAP is that you should have data to support the speeds on ads/product pages from actual customer measurements. Or put another way, not the ATM modem rate, but the IP throughput that 10% of customers can actually manage.

"You can get up to 16 Mb speeds in around 80% of the UK" as per the BT legal footnotes is a little bit vague. 80% of the UK sounds very geographic rather than population based and is probably less accurate than 80% of people.

A year ago they were saying

BT Wholesale today announced its intent to extend the availability of next generation copper broadband - offering customers speeds of up to 20Mbps* - by enabling exchanges serving around 80 per cent of UK homes and businesses by the end of 2011

Edited by yarwell (Tue 03-Apr-12 09:31:37)

since its supposed to be on actual sync speeds not "up to" then it would in my view appear the BT retail website breaches the ASA ruling. As it shows 16meg as up to speed when there is no way 10% can achieve that speed unless they are selectively turning down customers with lower syncs to hit it.

How do you know that 10% cannot achieve that speed? The new 3dB target margin will have boosted a good few lines, certainly was worth 1Meg extra on a 45dB line here.

Eclipse is talking of an average of 12.3Mbps for its ADSL2+ products.

If you are sure it is impossible, then raise a complaint with ASA and we can see how it progresses

past articles, including one from the bbc which was 1-2 years ago showed some stats. One of them was something like a low single digit % get over 16mbit. The fact every small isp website now has removed speeds (the ones I checked) would seem to backup what I am saying. Clearly they would have had to show a significantly lower speed if they were to comply with the ruling whilst showing a speed. I suspect BT are doing their usual tactic which is to break the ruling for X amount of months until the ASA tell them to comply. During that time BT will have gained X amount of customers from such practice.

I did tell the ASA already that the 10% was a joke of a ruling in the first place, (really should be 51% minimal but ideally 90%). Whether or not I do another complaint regarding BTs website I dont know. I suspect I wont need to tho and other isp's will do it.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 04-Apr-12 12:59:12)

since its supposed to be on actual sync speeds

it isn't. It's supposed to be what the customer can experience and measure, which has to be a speed test or at least a data throughput without overheads.

I haven't seen any breakdown of ADSL2+ speeds, I wouldn't rule out 10% getting 16M but it won't be 50% for sure.

yes throughput, so I was even gernous saying sync speed.

trying to find the actual bbc article now, here is one showing averages at least tho.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14295046

way below the quoted eclipse average.

but there was also an article showing how many got in the 16-24mbps range.

ok found another also now with lower averages but bit older, also shows 14% get over 14mbit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12611315

with a link to an ofcom document here http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-researc...

this one says 3% near to 20mbit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/12619356

so its the 16mbit figure thats missing really, 14% at 14mbit 3% at 20mbit.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 04-Apr-12 13:31:33)

BT, whose 20Mbps service typically managed between 7.3 and 8.9Mbps

http://www.adsl24.co.uk/broadband/home/
http://www.ukfsn.org/home/internet/adsl/
http://www.vivaciti.net/internet/1/home-internet