In reply to a post by tide:

My clock is synched to a time centre, I trust it.

Of course you do, nothing you do could be less than perfect.

Mine (and tbb's) is sync'd to NPL. The UK time standard, part of the UTC world-wide time definition.

But of course, inferior to your choice.

In reply to a post by tide:

The measurement of size is obsolete from your tutors or fathers day, they no longer even pass a fleeting thought for kilobits anymore. Not unless nostalgically, but that is not relevant to the task at hand I bet. Because such speeds/sizes are obsolete, and that it at tech level. Either of them will admit you this.

People are not tekkies and were not from the days of the 70s and of that interest, they are busy with little understanding and so this method of comparing with MB is the best way forward.

Guess the year of the following extracts:

The combination of computing power with high speed data communication is rightly regarded as potentially the most powerful influence yet on our handling of information and perhaps on our whole way of life.

Increasing use of digital circuits to replace traditional telephone lines will drive communication costs down and stimulate a whole new range of applications for data networks.

In the UK, the "demonpolisation" of public telecommunications services should open the door to large numbers of "value added" communication networks, a new market which should further enhance the growth of data communications equipment and services.

I occasionally bemoan the lack of forward thinking and clever programming out there, which leads to bloatware, Megabits of data transferred and Megabytes of data stored. I am usually greeted with arguments of less cost for bloatware and large drives, than slimline programming and less data usage. Or in other words...fuel is cheap and so are cars, so stuff making them aerodynamic and efficient. The price is never calculated by taking into account the value, and if my 'forward-thinking' attitude were to prevail, we would have little need for your argument of MB for data transmission jargon, as the required data up and down the lines would be far less.

It's the modern fashions of having web objects, masses of banners and high def content which slow the Internet down at present. Ask anyone living in a not/slow spot. The problem isn't the capacity. It's the content designers. I have nothing against heavy duty content if alternatives are available for those who need it. I have nothing against fashion in its proper place (the high street). I care not one jot for fashion when it drives a market to make ever-increasing unrealistic demands of the available infrastructure on the whim of people who have no idea what they want.

In my mind, you, in your own mind have decided that what you can't understand is not worth understanding, so the industry must change to suit you. Best of luck old bean. Trillions of annual sales and wages say otherwise.

In reply to a post by tide:

If I can pick an orange from a tree at the rate of six per minute then it matters not their weight or size, averaged out of course. However if you were to present the exact dimensions, weight and colour do you not think this would be a little to much for most.

How many oranges can I pick from a tree, six, fine, I get it - most people will reach this way. Now lets see you make it simpler than that with your mathematics.

Fruit pickers get paid by weight or by the "basket", not by the number of oranges. The speed of filling the basket depends on the size of oranges picked (cf MB), but the speed of picking the oranges remains six per minute (cf Mbps).

Supermarkets do specify the required dimensions of most fruits and vegetables to their suppliers. There are even arguments at European Commission level about the curvature of bananas.

I tend to buy these loose, by number, but they are priced in pounds per kg. The conversion rate varies .

just 3% get close to the advertised speeds

you aren't comparing like with like. The advertised "speed" is the overhead inclusive line rate. A good proportion of "up to 8M" customers do achieve full link speed and obviously all VM customers do because it's a fixed speed.

If the advertiser was using measurable data transfer rate then it would never be "8M" in the first place. That's the place to start.

You CANNOT state broadband speed as 4MB because how do you work out how long a 32MB file takes to download?

Is it 32/4 = 8 but 8 what minutes? hours? seconds?

Under what tide is proposing a blu-ray is encoded at 3.5MB, so how does the public figure out the file size might be 15GB for the actual movie.

I love how the UK Daily Mail reader crowd always manage to find something to moan about!

Before we question the right/wrongs of this measurement, lets just get one thing straight. This is a unit of measurement that is standard globally throughout the entire IT sector. Every computer or device that we have in the this is programmed designed to report and measure network transfer in this unit. This wasn't dreamed up by TalkTalk or the big bad BT Group to mis-lead you!

With regards to ISP's and advertising broadband, tbh I feel sorry for them, they are just BT resellers or in LLU case, forced to sell Broadband in the same advertising models as BT because that's how typically we expect our Broadband Services to be delivered.

It strikes me that if you were so bothered about the units used, you'd educate yourself accordingly like any other subject? But the truth is the majority of people aren't bothered and broadband is just internet for some people.

In reply to a post by yarwell:

just 3% get close to the advertised speeds

you aren't comparing like with like. The advertised "speed" is the overhead inclusive line rate. A good proportion of "up to 8M" customers do achieve full link speed and obviously all VM customers do because it's a fixed speed.

If the advertiser was using measurable data transfer rate then it would never be "8M" in the first place. That's the place to start.

am reffering to 21CN adsl2+ 20/24mbit services.

incidently new VM services add the overhead to the sync speed.

eg. on my 30mbit service I am synced at 32.2mbit, and uplifted areas get 33.3mbit.

If I am not mistaken VM fare ok in the tests.

Impressed to see King Canute is still chuntering away. He has tenacity, I will give him that.

Lets just dumb everything down so the thickest person in the world can understand it even if it bears no relation to reality.

No doubt as this argument involves the ASA that's what will happen in the long run, so I think tide may well be on to a winner here!

I didn't build my castles on sand.