Broadband subscribers helped to quit slow providers

Broadband subscribers helped to quit slow providers - article from BBC

I wonder what this will actually achieve for most people.
E.g. Provider A can't give you a good speed as your miles from the pcp or exchange.
So you're able to switch to Provider B and now you're still a long way from exchange or pcp and well... Hmmm

Im guessing there will be some scenarios where it may help someone (vm areas for example), but wouldn't it be better for them to provide help for those people to get faster broadband rather than just enabling them to get out of a contract.

There is a news article on TBB front page as well.

Can't see it making much difference to be honest. The conditions mean few people will benefit and those that can, as stated in the article, may not get anything better with anyone else as it could just be a long line.

But it does not apply to VM - probably because Ofcom see them as a fixed speed connection.

Yes, TBB has highlighted that on their homepage now too.

My uneducated guess would be that this might help to move to a provider that might be more helpful in investigating and fixing the fault, if there is one, or has more reliable infrastructure that they are responsible for.

Trouble is it seems to be sync speed so for almost everyone is entirely in the hands of BT Openreach. Some ISPs are better at getting them to fix things but they have no direct control (obviously ignoring the ISPs that have their own infrastructure).

And as Mr S says it is based on synch speed. So if you have a great synch but heavy congestion then it doesn't appear to help.

The BBC article has now been updated with a reference to Andrew and ThinkBroadband website.

That Andrew gets everywhere

As I just said on BBC Radio Coventry, it may mean less people complain to Ofcom or Adjudicator as they can resolve a contract dispute in a more informal way when speeds are the issue, but to be honest the slow speeds of the minimum guarantee are usually so slow that any ISP support should have picked up on this already.

Also there is the attendant risk that if the ISP checking the line means an engineer visit and no faults are found then that becomes chargeable, and people might get the bill if speeds are within the tolerances ISP originally gave.

It is a nice change from Ofcom, but not as ground breaking as say forcing providers to quote median speeds in marketing material for example.

To give an idea of the speed profiles on ADSL and FTTC added a couple of graphs to our twitter account.

https://twitter.com/thinkbroadband/status/6088889835...

Seems abit vague. You have to give every opportunity for the isp to fix any issue but doesnt really set a deadline. Then what if after all tests the isp say the fault is due to internal wiring and not them?