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

The cliff for ADSL2+ is such that as you approach 20Meg the drop off is rapid.

So I don't doubt that BT can demonstrate the 10% figure for 16 Meg. Plusnet is confident enough to quote 17 Meg on its business range.

Of the providers in our listings, plenty still have up 24 Meg and up to 20 Meg showing. Not always on the main page, but somewhere in the product listings.

Remember that complaining that BT website does not suit your personal view will get nowhere, only if you can show it breaks the guidelines. Now if provider ABC has data that suggests less than 10% get 16Meg from BT connections, then they are free to challenge - we could see the SamKnows testing hardware actually subject to review and how providers nominate lines to be used for it.

your mention of Samknows got me thinking....

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-researc...

Fig 1.6 says that 10% of ADSL2+ customers get over 14M

In reply to a post by yarwell:

Fig 1.6 says that 10% of ADSL2+ customers get over 14M

Are they talking about the same thing?
e.g. I have between 17.2 and 16.8 megabit sync, but downloads are 14.1 to 14.8 megabit.

I have a samknows box, so contributing to the above data.

they are talking speed tests, as they don't know the sync speed from Sam's boxes.

The ASA effectively requires speed tests to be used now, despite having failed to explicitly say so.

Providers have access to the data themselves, as some pay for the SamKnows services I believe.

So would seem daft of BT to have not checked this. Also as data was from Nov 2011, and would have included earlier results, then the rollout of 3dB target will have had a positive effect on the numbers.

yes after robertos posted those links I see there is worse offenders, although after seeing the 14mbit figures I posted I am not so sure now 16mbit will be below 10%, although 20 and 24mbit defenitly are unless an isp deliberatly rejects longer lines.

is it the case tho the ASA doesnt care about the isp's own website but only marketing campaigns? that might be why some isps have seemingly not changed much.

is it the case tho the ASA doesnt care about the isp's own website but only marketing campaigns?

No. That used to be the case - adverts on 3rd party web sites were the only web interest for ASA but now they have remit over supplier's own web sites. ASA site has a list of web sites that are "bad boys" for not cooperating with them.

the ASA reported noted that the average speed on the ADSL2+ services was declining as more lines were added with more exchanges carrying it. If say half the users get <6M on MaxDSL and move onto WBC they won't do a lot for the average speed of WBC.

Could make sense to keep an "up to 6M" product portfolio with users of that managed to reflect those who don't gain much from ADSL2+.

Perhaps, but at 4 Meg an extra Meg is worth having if it allows Netflix full quality to play smoothly, plus upstream

There is scope for providers playing some odd games, or being more careful in who gets picked for speed monitoring. for example the picture for UK broadband for Ofcom is from just 1700 locations, split across ADSL and ADSL2+ and cable, and the 6 to 10 providers.

Now we are told it is statistically sensible, but I am not sure the numbers are enough to give a good line speed profile, i.e. decent number of lines for each provider at various line lengths.

I await the next ofcom report that mentions advertised speeds, hope they get it right.

it would only be an administrative classification - we all know the services do the best speed they can within their parameters, regardless of what advertising know-nothings, consumer advocates and policy wonks may think.

So put all the sub 10M sync on a 6M service description, bob's your uncle. Top speed (10% basis) increases for the ADSL2+ customers on a different service description.

With careful wording on adverts it would work

But can see some bright spark wanting to limit upstream or similar to ensure they are visibly different

Stats may have changed in the other direction over the past 6 months.

Theory
For a significant number of exchanges with BT ADSL2+ FTTC has been provided, this has reduced the number of lower speed customers living further away from the exchange, leaving the higher speed ones that are EO served. This has the effect of increasing the average ADSL2+ speed.

Could well mean that 10% get 16Mb or higher.

The rubbish stat is that no-one mentions that this means 89% get less than 16Mb!.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

With careful wording on adverts it would work

All posts seem to assume that the customer has and can test their connection, being speed; data throughput, sync etc. because obviously he is connected!
What about a new customer who does not have or never has had a connection to the internet? If ISP�s do not display the �up to� or just have a link to a checker, the new customer won�t know what he is buying into, simply because he can�t check his telephone line etc. So how can this new customer compare ISP�s statistics?
Dose this new ASA rule benefit the consumer or has it given the ISP�s a way out of displaying statistics?

In reply to a post by scopio:

has it given the ISP�s a way out of displaying statistics?

As the OP, I feel only fair to answer this.

Far from it. We as an ISP feared and we feel is now already happening is there now appears many different ways for ISPs to present the same exact data (percentages, up to's, regional variations, ADSL v's ADSL2+ v's FTTC) making comparing for the consumer a far harder process.

Our view has always been, when we were consulted, that it's practical to address the concerns raised by the ASA/CAP if the solution introduced was a consistant model across the industry (similar to how energy ratings are found on many goods etc). This way the consumer could compare without all the redtape, as those clever marketing bods could have little room to move.

All we have had this week since we removed data is phone call after phone call with confused pre-sales. We even been asked by we don't listed up to speeds. We now having to flip back to up to in some way as a temp solution :/

Virtually every ISP web site has a line checker or they offer speed estimates over the phone. This is a requirement and has been field tested for accuracy by OFCOM.

The BT Address checker gives an estimate where no phone line data is available.

So the unconnected are catered for. Why can't he check his telephone number ?

I refer learned people to http://blog.thinkbroadband.com/2010/09/labelling-of-...

If BT enabled the whole of Greater London, population 7.9million or so, for exceptionally fast speeds, let's say 200 meg, would they then be able to advertise 'up to 200 meg' service nationwide, based on the fact that more than 10% of the population could get that speed, even if it was concentrated in a very small area and 90% of the population (the rest of the country) were still unlikely to get above 16meg?

In reply to a post by yarwell:

Virtually every ISP web site has a line checker or they offer speed estimates over the phone. This is a requirement and has been field tested for accuracy by OFCOM.

The BT Address checker gives an estimate where no phone line data is available.

So the unconnected are catered for. Why can't he check his telephone number ?

I was just asking in general, as no mention of how new customers would be able to make a choice has been delt with in earlier posts, only for those already connected to one or other ISP. Your reply answers my query

they could say that the service used in London was a 200M service, but would have to say it wasn't available in areas where that technology wasn't deployed. Bit like Virgin Cable.

(sig's are annoying on this site, mod/admin can you please put an ------------ line between the post and the Sig for every one so we know its an sig, Yarwell Sig is good point on merged post with sig )

its very rare that i ever see an connection any higher then 8mb, on avg its norm 5mb or less (think i have only ever seen 20mb Lock 3 times in my life and that was due to the fact they was less then 200-300m from the exchange)

FTTC is a lot more predictable norm most i have seen have more then 30mb, 1 customer had 15mb but that was due to where the Cab was, still it was better then 0.8mb on ADSL (most on FTTC are closer to 40mb or at 40mb, not seen any upgraded 80mb connections yet)

In reply to a post by leexgx:

(sig's are annoying on this site, mod/admin can you please put an ------------ line between the post and the Sig for every one so we know its an sig, Yarwell Sig is good point on merged post with sig )

Surely the "Phil" makes it quite clear where his sig starts?

Two things you can do to solve the problem .

First, if you go to My Home in the menu, you can turn off sig visibility, using the Settings panel at the bottom. I prefer to see them, even though speed test results in them annoy me - particularly the banner ones.

Second, if you want to see sigs, as many are useful, most are obvious but if in doubt clicking the Quote button on the post shows it without sig.

Hope that helps.

your sig is the way it should be done it has an ________ then your sig post, but yours has a lot of content in it so its easy to see its an sig (i have made an post relating to the comment http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/newsite/f/4110676-s... )

Edited by leexgx (Sat 07-Apr-12 01:37:33)