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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.
Regards PGre
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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.
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Register (or login) on our website and you will not see this ad.
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But it does not apply to VM - probably because Ofcom see them as a fixed speed connection.
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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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.
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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.
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The BBC article has now been updated with a reference to Andrew and ThinkBroadband website.
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That Andrew gets everywhere 
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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...
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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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?
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That is why some providers may dispatch an engineer and test to eliminate the effect of internal wiring.
Vague yes, but unless the market is willing to support things like engineer only installs and visits to verify speeds we are somewhat stuck with the situation.
Of course it could be said that installing FTTH or DOCSIS would resolve the issues, but people still get slow speeds on those services just it is not down to connection speed (usually) but rather congestion and other issues.
All that said the move to quad play is a move away from a vibrant broadband market in terms of migrations and easy moving, since the quad play packages are so different between the providers.
In a pure commercial world the answer may be to refuse to provide service to those with the most problematic lines.
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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The article did not mentioned throughput speeds. I assume both synch speed and throughput speed are considered here?
Oliver.
Edited by Oliver341 (Thu 11-Jun-15 10:02:14)
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I am guessing it is synch speed as to do throughput speed you would need an independent way to test it that everyone agreed gave a good indication of real world. And if the ISP has control of the speed test then they could knock out much of the contention by placing the tester strategically - if they don't have control then they will blame the speed test itself or the peering links between it and wherever the test is hosted.
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A little muddy, need to see the revised code of practice for the wording used the full text is not yet available, just going on what was an embargoed release talking about changes.
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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Yep. One of those headlines which looks good in practice, but when it comes down to the detail, it proves harder to be workable than it seems. I would think people have more issues with throughput speeds in general than slow speeds due to line faults, which would typically manifest in additional issues like voice line noise and dsl disconnections.
And that's before REIN is even mentioned...
Oliver.
Edited by Oliver341 (Thu 11-Jun-15 10:14:58)
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Where I step in with my daily consultants fee 
An ISP can game things e.g. by hosting files and thus being chosen by testers that pick source with lowest latency. A user can game things by speed testing and producing data that is slower than the reality.
By comparing a users speed tests with others on the same ISP and maybe in the same area you can get a very good idea of the issues, and with several tests you can even see patterns and maybe point towards a local issue e.g. Wi-Fi problems.
At the end of the day, an ISP is likely to already let someone go if their speeds are bad and ISP can do nothing more, if the ISP is reasonable.
If Ofcom wanted to disrupt then it would insist on a shorter maximum length of contract for FTTC migrations to reflect the 1 month Openreach contract once you've had FTTC for more than 12 months.
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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Cant Ofcom just ban stupidly long contracts instead, then people can move with just a months notice anyway. Many ISPs have 1 month contracts these days. Although then i guess you run the risk of price rises if an ISP dont lock you into a 12-18 month contract
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Although then i guess you run the risk of price rises if an ISP dont lock you into a 12-18 month contract
It's not a risk, price rises would 100% happen. Activation fees, charges for routers, etc.
Oliver.
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If prices rise during a long contract you can already exit, as 30 days notice has to be given.
Many ISPs with 1 month contracts - if you include the SME and the less promoted options from those like PlusNet then maybe, but when did you see a 1 month contract advertised for fixed line broadband on TV.
Ofcom has banned contracts longer than 24 months already.
Short contracts carry a risk, i.e. you do a sign-up offer so people do, but then leave for another sign-up offer. So a likely reaction from the market is a lot less sign-up offers and people may then feel less inclined to switch. There is a balancing act involved.
The move by Ofcom is good, but its not a revolution. The migration changes are late, having taken 3+ years to come into effect. Have not published our version of the new process in FAQ as been waiting for any last minute changes and to try and learn the gotcha's
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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Ideally you could get a sign up offer by agreeing to a contract or choose not to have the sign up offer and have a shorter contract. That is not uncommon in most other industries.
If people are willing to pay the connection fees and not have special deals then a 1 month contract should be no issue. If they want the offers then they commit.
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I believe the revised Code of Practice has now been published.
Ant this is a copy of a speech Ms White will be making today.
Taken from here.
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Why do Ofcom seem so obsessed with line sync speeds when considering ISPs? In the vast majority of cases, the line sync speed is completely outside the ISP's control - it is controlled by the physical line (which is Openreach's responsibility), the internal wiring in the customer's premises and the customer's modem/router. The only one of these which the ISP may possibly have any control over is the customer's modem/router - if it was supplied as part of the contract.
So. would Ofcom not be better allowing customers who experience consistent (either permanently or at specific times of day/week) throughput considerably less than their line sync speed will support to terminate the contract with no penalty? For example, the people who have posted on these forums that they can obtain good download speeds, consistent with their line sync rate, overnight or early mornings but whose throughput drops considerably in the evenings and weekends.
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That would require the relevant people at Ofcom to understand the subject/technology they regulate.
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It looks to me that it does indeed cover download speed slowdowns as well as sync speeds.
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It may well do. I took the poster's post for granted. I have now started ploughing through the text of the Code, (see this post), but have temporarily given up at Page 6. Breakfast(!) calls. I shall try again when full of energy and patience  .
I have never seen such awful officialise as emanates from Ofcom in all its publications. Utterly dreadful.
You have email.
Edited by RobertoS (Sat 13-Jun-15 13:11:56)
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I'd be intrigued to know how we are supposed to measure the throughput.
A server hosted by our ISP? Won't reflect interconnect or peering issues. And/or they can prioritise traffic to it so that it always looks good.
A server external to our ISP? Who picks the server? What if the ISP blames the host for throughput issues?
And anyway the data most people access isn't hosted on speedtest servers. It shouldn't matter to me if TBB tester reports low speeds as long as I can do what I really want to do. So just how relevant can speedtester results be when complaining to your ISP?
---
Andrue Cope
Brackley, UK
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